In four weeks from now, we're planning to move TrekToday and all other sites in the Trek Nation to a new server. But to do that, we're going to need your help.

As many of you will have noticed, our aging server is frequently unable to handle all the visitors the site gets, particularly on Wednesdays when a new Enterprise episode airs. In order to try and keep the site available as much as possible, we've had to take several unfortunate measures - including removing many of the menu graphics on TrekToday and disabling useful features such as the search engine and the postings archive on the Trek BBS.

In order to solve these problems once and for all, we've decided to move from our aging server to a new home that's at least twice as powerful. In addition, we want to upgrade the forum software at the Trek BBS to a completely new version, which not only will be more efficient but will also offer additional features such as personal avatars, private messaging, and the ability to customise the look of the site. The end result of this should be that the site will be unavailable far less often and will be much faster - making it a much more pleasant place to surf!

Unfortunately, there is a rather major snag involved in this plan: the extra cost involved will be substantial. With the depressed online advertising market, it has already been hard to cover all the costs of running the site, and the set-up costs and increased monthly charges that would come with a new server and new software would mean an even larger expenditure. We had hoped that the net economy would be improving and we'd be able to pay for these upgrades out of our own pocket. But after a significant period waiting for this improvement, we're going to have to do what we never thought we would do - ask for donations from our readers.

If you would like to donate to the Trek Nation, you would contributing to the new, more powerful server that would be able to prevent the slowdowns TrekToday so often experiences, and you would help us to strongly improve the Trek BBS. And of course, we would be very grateful to you. If you would like to donate, please do so using the below link to online payment service PayPal:

If you have any further questions about this donation request, as you likely will have, we've posted an extensive announcement and mini-FAQ on this at the Trek BBS. Please follow this link to read more about it. In addition, feel free to email us if you have any additional questions.

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