I received the following reply after making an enquirey direct to the administrators of the birdingpals website. I’d still feel more comfortable hearing about this from Knud Rasmussen whom I’ve always associated with birdingpals. Russ Lamb —– Original Message —– From: Contact Pals To: jayasphere@skymesh.com.au Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2013 12:09 AM Subject: Re: ContactAdmin: fee for contacting a birdingpal We were brought down this spring by a auto spam attack and had to pay for professional hosting. We have been providing this service at our own expense for more than eleven years. We need help. We are hoping that the Pals who appreciate the service will donate by purchasing a passphrase also, but you don’t have to. Vince Contact Pals Admin ——————————————————————————– From: “jayasphere@skymesh.com.au” <jayasphere@skymesh.com.au> To: contactAdmin@contactpals.org Sent: Friday, August 30, 2013 1:37 AM Subject: ContactAdmin: fee for contacting a birdingpal Contact Admin, I have been registered as a birding-pal for a number of years. Is it true that people now have to pay a fee to be able to make contact with a registered birding-pal? Who decided this and why? Why were registered birdingpals not informed of this significant change in policy? Russ Lamb ———————————– senderIp = 180.181.122.194 senderIpNote = senderId = linx1410a15265 senderEmail = jayasphere@skymesh.com.au senderNickname = R. Lamb senderCounrty = senderCity = ContactAdmin.jsp =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au http://birding-aus.org ===============================