I've always hoped that one day I'd be well off enough to just cover the hosting bill for this site myself. Unfortunately life keeps handing me lemons, and lemonade doesn't pay the bills!

 

This last year has been a bit of a strange one for me, and I've not been at the forum much. My husband and I moved house at the start of the year, a process which began some months prior. As if this wasn't stressful enough – packing up all our stuff and taking on a bigger mortgage, this year has decided to be particularly unkind. Shortly after the move I was diagnosed as having extensive bilateral massive pulmonary emboli – many large blood clots on my lungs. No wonder I hadn't felt well during the move! Had it not been spotted (I was misdiagnosed twice over the course of a couple of months) when it was I wouldn't be here to tell the tale. Recovery is slow and difficult – very frustrating too – I can't work as much as I used to, and of course “don't work, don't get paid” when you're a contract worker & self employed. As if that wasn't bad enough my husband was made redundant in April and has had to take a job on less money. You'd think that's enough bad news for one year, but the horrible, mouldy cherry on top of the miserable cake which is 2014 was the death of my dear cat Phoebe after almost 17 years together.

 

Argh! I really can't wait for 2014 to be over.

 

Anyway, what with trying to keep up with enough work to keep our heads above the water and feeling exhausted all the time from my 'serious medical event' as the doctors call it and being back and forth to hospital and the doctors surgery for regular check-ups and follow-up tests I've had no time at all for SFC. I've tried to deal with emergencies when folks have contacted me about them but that's all. Sorry. Then I suddenly realised we must be due for hosting renewal soon.

So, here it is. The 2014 SFC Annual Beg. We need to cover the hosting bill of $360 n time for the invoice towards the end of September. I must have a built-in timer or something after all these years, as that gives us 6 weeks. It always seems to be 6 weeks!

 

Anyway, I hope life has been rather more kind to all of you this year and that you're still enjoying SFC and finding pleasure in the old Shining games – long may they live on! 🙂

 

 

…and there goes another year.

Yes folks, it's that time of year again – the Annual Beg. It seems like only yesterday I put up last year's beg. I've barely been here in the last year, but it seems people still use the site. So, if you want to keep using the site over the  next year please do consider contributing to the costs of running the site.

If however you feel it's time for the site to be closed down due to inactivity – not only on the site but with the series itself and the direction it has taken, I'd like to know. If the site is no longer wanted or needed and the series is essentially dead to many of us then maybe it's time to say goodbye to SFC? It's had a good life.

Due to a donation received earlier in the year, we are now only looking to raise US$330 instead of the full $360. The invoice is due by October 1st, so we've got about 7 weeks to raise the funds.

UPDATE 16th August 2013

Big thanks to everyone who contributed to this year's beg! We have now raised enough funds & I have requested the hosting invoice so it can be paid early! SFC shall live another year at least 🙂

My goodness how quickly the years go by!

Yes folks, it’s that time of year again – the Annual Beg. Though I may not be as active at SFC in recent years I’m sure you all know I do still work hard on this place 🙂 Last year I launched the new SFC site design and in the last few days many of you have been playing with the SFC Forum RPG which I’ve been developing over the last 4 years, though the majority of the work on it was completed in the last 5 months.

Once again it’s a little short notice, I got so caught up in the RPG development that I lost track of time. Plus, I managed to win a free month’s hosting which I thought would be tacked onto the end of my current year of hosting… but I was wrong, it comes in the form of a discount on my next invoice.

I also had a little contribution through from a member earlier in the year which I have done my best to squirrel away and therefore this year’s Beg Target is lower than usual – woohoo! This year we’re looking to raise US$300.

If you’ve got some spare PayPal funds and would like to help contribute towards keeping SFC online for another year, you can do so by clicking on the picture below. Thanks for your ongoing support!

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UPDATE 8th September 2012 16:43
A big thank you to everyone who contributed to the 2012 Annual Beg – we reached the target so quickly I can hardly believe it! The invoice is paid and SFC shall live on for another year!

Well folks, it’s taken a long time but it’s here at last!

Some of you may remember the RPG/shop system we had on a previous incarnation of the SFC forums about 10 years ago. I’ve now completely re-coded it from scratch to bring you a new and improved version!

I began work on this over 4 years ago, but to be honest the vast majority of the development has happened in the last 5 months, with extensive testing by a group of SFC forum members over the last couple of weeks. There may still be a blip or two, so please bear with me if you find anything which needs fixing!

I could spend ages typing up the features and options available in the game, but it’s probably easier if I just direct you to the new forum dedicated to the RPG system, which includes a handy introduction and guide for new players.

Please bear in mind that the game is only simple and designed as an entertaining distraction for forum members. It’s not some high-end super fancy amazing new game – but it is a bit of fun!

So, without further ado, I present you with the SFC Forum RPG and it’s new dedicated discussion forum.

Well folks time really does go by faster the older you get…

It’s that time of year again – the hosting renewal for SFC is due by October 1st, giving us a little over 4 weeks to reach the hosting bill of US$360. With all the work on getting SFC rebuilt I sort of forgot how soon the payment was due – so this is all a bit short notice I’m afraid.

The SFC family of sites has grown again in the last year, taking on the Shining Wiki site as well as One Thing Shining, a fantastic Shining Wisdom guide which needed a home. SFC itself has undergone a total overhaul including the forums, and there are still more features planned (including the return of the RPG & Shop System, which I’ve been recoding). SFC also hosts the Shining Force III Translation Project and the Shining Only: UK fan meetup site.

If you’ve got some spare PayPal funds and would like to help contribute towards keeping SFC online for another year, you can do so by clicking on the picture below. Thanks for your ongoing support!

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UPDATE!

September 8th 2011 – We have now raised sufficient funds to cover the next year of hosting! Huge thanks to everyone has contributed this year 🙂

Well folks, it’s been a very long time coming, but it’s here at last – the new, improved SFC!

My free time over the last 4 years hasn’t been quite what it used to be, but I’ve been working hard on SFC’s new custom CMS and new site layout on and off for all that time.

I’ve still a lot of data to add and update, but I decided that the site is now far enough along to launch – otherwise I shall be completely sick of the sight of it before it even goes live on the web 😉

Perhaps not a great deal has changed content-wise, but the new CMS is almost finished and will allow me to set up additional staff members to update the site – hopefully this will mean fresher content and more updates even when I’m not able to do as much here myself as I’d like to.

Here’s a quick list of what’s new or changed:

• News is no longer just for news, but for features in general, allowing staffers to post articles and musings about the series in times of little or no actual Shining news. Got some good ideas for future features already!
• The Game Reviews section will soon be accepting submissions from SFCers.
• Shining Videos are now hosted on YouTube to save on bandwidth and disk space – this has also allowed me to more easily embed the videos into the pages for a nicer look!
• Magazine Articles are now converted into PDFs, meaning no more need to download individual pages.
• We’ve got Polls again, and updated Shining product links/adverts throughout the site.
• Shining Studies now includes the SFIII HQ Bookshelves translations as well as the Character Name translations (these were removed from the old site, with plans to add them via the Shining Electronic Encyclopedia (“SEE”) which never really got off the ground. We’ve also got the Shining Races page back which had been lost for the same reason.
• Shopping links, Series Introduction & Series Developers pages have been updated.
• The Links Directory has been overhauled, making it much more simple for members to suggest new links and report dead ones. Staffers can now easily remove dead links and approve new links. We’ve also now got a links rating system, so you can vote for your favourite Shining sites and help organise the links by their quality.
• Various pages in Site Information have been updated.
• Competitions and Greetings cards have been (temporarily?) removed while I consider how important they are for the site and think about rebuilding these areas.
• We now have a twitter feed to allow for quick news updates, which are displayed on the main page. I plan to allow other staffers access to this account once I’ve got the CMS into a sufficiently usable state for them 😉

Please bear with me while I get data added for the newer games in the series and sort out member submissions for Fanart, FAQs etc. I may take the easy option and set up a forum for such submissions rather than setting up submissions via the site & CMS. We’ll see what time I have 🙂

Right, time for me to prep the files and hope all is well with moving this site from its test location… eeek! It’s a bit scary going live now, it’s been so long in the works. Wish me luck, and let me know if anything’s broken *fingers crossed*