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Writer's pictureKieran Carter

Introducing.. Our Book Club and Patreon!

Hi everyone!

We hope you're well. It's a bit of an uncertain time isn't it? With a lot of us having to stay indoors a lot or working from home it can get difficult trying to find things to do and keeping yourselves occupied.


As i've noted before this project is entirely self funded, so I've been thinking to myself how it's possible to make the website self sustaining (It costs a pretty penny to keep a growing website going!) but also sticks to our core goals of being educational, accessible and engaging.


That's why we've come up with a multi-tiered Patreon. We did a poll a few weeks back to see if anyone would be up for participating, and we receive a great response with more than half of people contributing saying they'd donate to the cause. If you aren't too sure how Patreon works, there's different tiers you can pay towards in order to receive different benefits. So for example, you can donate £2 a month to support us and know it goes towards the general running of the website, or you can donate £30 a month and receive a vast array of different awards and hidden content. To provide flexibility and fairness, we've decided to make a tier for everyone.


 

Here's some details of the tiers, and even if you can just give us a cup of coffee we've added that option too.


Supporter - £2 a month

If you want to support us but don't have a lot to spare, it'd be great if you could support us with a couple of pounds per month. You would help keep the website running and enable to support local writers which we will publish on our site. After this, the website is for you and the community.


Subscriber - £5 a month

A £5 a month subscription would enable us to both keep our site running and allow us to commit to regular Q&As and livestreams with guests. We will post our contributor features a week before them being published on our site and social media, giving you priority access to all our content first.


Member - £10 a month

Our member tier provides the same benefits as Tier 2, but we will dedicate a private Twitter page for patrons at this tier or above as a kind of History group, providing each other feedback, ideas and stories about our shared heritage. A page mentioning all patrons would be published on our website, as well as earning a special badge next to your name on our website.


Book Club - £15 a month

The Book Club is our most exciting and exclusive tier for supporters to our website so far. You would receive all benefits from previous tiers but have access to our book delivery service! Every other month, you will receive a brand new book focused on some aspect on the history of the North East. This could be on any subject, growing your collection and knowledge on our shared heritage. It's worth noting these would be high quality high street publications! We wouldn't charge any delivery fee, but we will notify you before we dispatch your book. As a thanks from us, we'll throw in a small message in the package.


Hobbyist - £30 a month

The Hobbyist tier is our highest, and if there is anyone out there willing to provide such a large amount then we are more than grateful that you can help us with our goal in making an engaging and educating history resource for the North East. Tier 5 would feature all of the previous benefits, including the book club, but you would have live access to our admin to chat, provide feedback or make suggestions for what we could do further. Your view would be extremely important in where we take the website going forwards.



 


We understand the pressures of life currently, and if you can't support us financially we absolutely understand. We have set this up as we are fully self funded and want to make it a thriving and growing community resource that will continue going forwards. Even the £2 will mean we can cover the hosting fees each month!


We also have a number of articles which are going to be added to the Patreon a week before they hit the website. The first is a compelling story about a Victorian balloonist in North Shields from a contributor!


We will also be announcing the first book in the next couple of days, with an introductory special offer to anyone looking to contribute.


We thank you for your continued support in enabling this project to thrive.


Kieran.

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