As many of you know for the first few years of the existance of this website, I never mentioned donations. The site was hosted on my neighbors computer in his basement and the only cost was a dinner a couple times a year. And I paid his genious daughter when she made changes.

Earlier this year when I went to the "Groupee Nation" and started this great new forum that brought along a regular monthly charge.

Recently I made, (I hope) a soft plea for donationts to help cover that.

The response was more than I ever anticipated. I hope I have thanked every one individually but I wanted to let the entire membership know that the hosting fees have been covered for virtually the next 12 months. I am very thankful.

One thing I think that is very cool, and this shows the value of the information that you all provide. I received several donations from people who have never even registered. People who don't even have Barths but the answers on this website cured the problems on their 1989 Holiday Rambler or such.

There is also a whole group of people out there that are not computer literate and can only read the info but have a typing phobia or somesuch thing and can't respond.

I got to tell you this and I won't tell you who it was, it was a non member anyway. A guy sent a note telling me how much he liked the website and sent me a $17 check addressed to Reader's Digest. I sent the check back with a letter with some Humor in Uniform jokes from the website so that he wouldn't miss anything.

I also shipped out 5-6 CD's. I usually sell about 10 a year.

Now I don't get a dime from this, but I still don't know what more folks don't buy some of the Barth stuff at www.cafepress.com/barthmobile I have bought a few things, especially the coffee mugs and canvass bags and the quality I thought was very high. Most of the stuff bought there now is from people whose last name is Barth. At first I had slapped Barthmobile all over everything...ego you know.. But now it is almost all original Barth logos. Even the old round earth one.

Anyway, thank you, thank you, you won't be hearing anything from me about donations in a loooonnnng time. Next year about this time maybe..

Hey Dave, Glad to hear we'll have this valuable site for some time to come. I'd like to propose a non-binding 10% rule for those who use this site for info regarding parts or service. Just keep track of how much money you save by using this site for finding the part you need or servicing your Barth without getting reemed by the service department at the RV place. At the end of the year, when Dave will need a little cash to keep this site going, send him 10% of what this site saved you. It doesn't sound like much, but it would add up to a lot and allow Dave to do even more for us, [If that's possible]. Just a suggestion, but I hope some of you take it seriously.