Renewal of Memberships

It's come around really quickly but it's that time of year; renewal of annual memberships for most of us is due on the 1st November.  As a community owned company, we’re sure you already know that Blipfoto relies on the income from memberships to keep going, so we’re getting the message out early to remind you.  It's really easy, just click on 'Membership' in the menu under your profile name on the website.

Over the last year Blipfoto has gone through a period of consolidation. We’ve introduced our new Community Blog, run by Michele, our Community Co-ordinator. The site has been available and performing well, with just the odd rare outage. The few issues we've had, some unexpected, some planned, have been dealt with quickly and efficiently. Just recently, you’ve helped us to collect information about the future direction of Blipfoto by completing our second membership survey. The first annual report has been produced and if you haven't had a chance to read it, it's available on our blog.

If you are already a paying member we hope you will renew to ensure that you don't lose any of the benefits of membership.  You can do this anytime up to the renewal date by going to the membership page. Any discounts you are entitled to from the crowd funding will still apply. The new membership will be added on to the end of this year, whenever you pay. Monthly paying members don’t need to do anything as payments will continue automatically. We’ve retained the facility to make an additional donation, and we'd like to offer thanks in advance to anyone who feels able to offer extra help in this way. For those of you who only use the apps, please be aware that they don’t support the purchase of memberships; you will need to go to the website, which has been designed to be viewed from your phone should you not have access to a computer.

If you don’t currently have a full membership, we'd very much like you to consider taking one out, not just in respect to the extra features you'll get, but for the wider contribution you will be making to Blipfoto. We encourage you to join us and help make sure that Blipfoto has a bright future. In return, you will gain all the benefits of membership:

-detailed statistics, 
-a beautiful gallery view
-a customisable thumbnail view
-the ability to download the original images from your journal
-an option to give up to five favourites a day
-the capacity of an extra 100 photos a year

as well as the knowledge that you are helping to support the Blipfoto community and be giving the best possible chance for the site to be improved for everyone.

The second survey has come back with the features you’d most like to see improved or developed, but these inevitably will cost time and money. We’ve previously explained that the income we received last year was enough to keep the site going throughout this year, but future development would be reliant on as many people buying memberships as possible. 

Every additional journal owner that buys a membership improves the chances of these developments taking place. Our overheads in keeping the site running are taking up most of the income at the moment, and that is despite the Directors and Community Co-ordinator continuing to work on an unpaid voluntary basis. A monthly membership costs no more than a large coffee at a café and much less than most magazines you buy from a newsagent. When you consider the pleasure and time you spend on the site, is it really asking too much?
   
It’s over to you now.  We’ll continue to remind you up to the 1st November but why not go ahead now? As we’ve said, you won’t lose any of this year’s membership as we’ll just add the new membership on to the end. Just click on membership in your menu.