[PSUBS-MAILIST] Membership??

Wed Jul 21 04:50:10 EDT 2021

 Hello Quinn, sorry you've had trouble with the website and membership.  I am co-founder of PSUBS and it's administrator, and I will address your concerns.  This is a good opportunity to address everyone regarding some of the issues you've raised so I'm sending to the list at large.  Everyone should read this.
The PSUBS Organization.We are alive and well, but PSUBS is an internet based organization ONLY with no official office or employees.  We do have a "leadership team" (posted on the website) which provides some elementary organizational structure to help guide the group, however a mailing list and facebook page represents the bulk of what PSUBS *is*.  PSUBS strength comes from the free flow of information obtained through our email based discussion group and our Facebook group.
Membership.Membership is not required to navigate the website or participate in either the email discussion group or the facebook group.  Membership is primarily intended to facilitate binding the group in comradery in a way that elevates us from being "just a bunch of guys on the internet".  Fees are collected to finance conventions, research and development, and anything else we think will benefit the group.  We do have some discounts for members that are available from some vendors however "benefits" are not the primary reason we have a "membership".
New memberships and renewals are processed automatically by software but unfortunately PayPal frequently changes the data it submits to us which ends up making the software fail.  Our membership processing software needs to be updated, but it's not a trivial task.  I have told existing members not to worry about renewing until I fix the software, and nobody has had their membership expired since the software problem was identified.  It looks like I forgot to hide the new membership signup page and I'm sorry it caught you.
Contact me privately at jon.wallace at yahoo.com to sort out the membership fee issue.

Barren and Dated Website.The website is primarily intended to be a repository of information that is derived from our discussion forums.  As most of us are aware, submarine fabrication as well as underwater exploration with a submarine is a "niche" hobby/market. There are not thousands of people building personal submarines, not even hundreds.  At any particular time there are perhaps a dozen or so people actively working on, or operating, a small personal submarine AND sharing that build or knowledge with the community at large.  As such, there is not a lot of daily, weekly, maybe even monthly movement in the community that necessitates updating the web site.  For the past 24 years, PSUBS has averaged about 200 people on our mailing list and that is about what we average for members on our Facebook group as well.
AOPA has 350,000 members.  USPA has 37,000 members.  BoatUS has 700,000 members.  All three organizations have paid staff, large budgets, and thousands of members to keep their web content updated and dynamic.  PSUBS has me, no budget, and a handful of people that provide content beyond the discussion forums.  Therefore, some website content does tend to get dated such as "news", "events", and "press" because I don't have the time to query each member with "hey what's new today?"  Each Psubber should consider the website THEIR opportunity to submit content such as news or events that they either make, or hear about.  Perhaps with the advent of Facebook and the instantaneous ability to announce "news" and "events" to everyone at once, these type of dated pages aren't even necessary anymore.  Regardless, the bottom line is that we ALL have to help provide content to keep the website current and dynamic.

Resources for the Novice.We have extremely valuable programs, calculators, white papers, spreadsheets, references, and design tools on the web site submitted by our members and other contributors, that are the core resources for designing, fabricating, and operating a small submarine.  All are far from being barren or dated.  As a self-admitted novice you will have much to learn, but most of us had a similar learning curve so you are in good company.  The discussion forums are your friend, whether you choose email, facebook, or both.  There are some valuable people on the email based group that do not contribute on Facebook, and vice-versa.  You shouldn't be hesitant to ask questions but at the same time you should also do some self-education for those "basic" questions you might have.  
Please note that the Facebook group is "private".  We allow anyone in, it was just set up that way originally (by mistake) and cannot be changed because of Facebook rules.
Jon

    On Tuesday, July 20, 2021, 11:18:17 PM EDT, quinn via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:  

Hello,

I signed up for a psubs membership and paid the $35 fee through paypal on 29/05/21. When I tried to use the UserID provided on the paypal receipt (UserID: 162221957946037) to sign in to the membership page on the psubs website I received errors stating that “The information you provided does not match our records”. 

After numerous attempts at following the given instructions to sign in I emailed the website contacts, jon at psubs.org and publicrelations at psubs.org. 

I never received a response. 

I was going to initiate a fraudulent chargeback via paypal tonight when I searched the website again and discovered this possibly-alive email discussion group (the online forums being all but dead as far as I can tell).

If anyone is out there, I’m interested in building my own submersible. I know it’s an achievable goal and there are like-minded individuals who have succeeded at this. The website being somewhat barren and dated, is psubs still an active organization? Would membership be beneficial in such a pursuit? If so, how does one contact the administrators to resolve issues? Are there resources available to novice members beyond an email chain archive? Obviously I have a lot of questions and don’t want to clutter a private email group with endless basic queries. 

I hope this reaches someone out there. Thank you in advance for your response,

Quinn
_______________________________________________
Personal_Submersibles mailing list
Personal_Submersibles at psubs.org
http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles

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