CSI is a member group that supports anvilfire.com! so that it can continue to provide free blacksmithing information to the world at large as it has done for the past 7 years. CSI support has allowed anvilfire.com! to continuously add to and maintain the growing knowledge base that is anvilfire.com! including resources such as the 160 plus weekly iForge step by step demos, the growing lists of FAQ's and the International Glossary of metalworking terms. CSI support has allowed the anvilfire guru to continue to answer blacksmithing and metalworking questions from the world at large full time every day for 5 years and to perform the constant maintenance that such a large dynamic web site requires. anvilfire.com! does things for the blacksmithing community that no other organization does or is likely to do in the future. anvilfire.com! is a unique resource! CSI support has allowed the anvilfire Slack-Tub Pub, the only continuously active blacksmith's chat on the Internet to remain in operation free to the general public. CSI helps support anvilfire's ABANA-Chapter.com web site and the free hosting of dozens of ABANA Chapter and independent blacksmithing organization web sites. CSI members receive perks such as bannerless pages on anvilfire.com!, discounts in the anvilfire Store and recognition as CSI members on the anvilfire guru's den forum. CSI members have kept this great resource alive mostly for the satisfaction of being part of this unique resource. CSI is now in the process of organizing as a legal non profit organization in order to continue its work and to preserve and maintain anvilfire on-line perpetualy in the event of the guru's future incapacity, demise or disinterest. Advertisers have covered a small part of our costs and may cover more in the future. However, it takes time to sell advertising. Time that the guru has spent answering your questions! As time goes on the popularity of anvilfire is taking care of selling itself. With a million visits a year and growing, web advertisers can not ignore anvilfire and are starting to come to us! Sales from the anvilfire Store have also helped but anvilfire.com was established as an information resource and not as an on-line merchant. We would rather be helping others reach the blacksmithing community. To continue to provide the level of service anvilfire has provided in the past largely at the guru's expense we need the the CSI membership to grow to ten times what it is today.
$52 / year (only $1 week!) or $650 / month Annual or semi annual fees can be paid either by cash, check or credit card. Benefits of membership:
1 Members Group: The group is currently (April 2004) in the process of forming a US based 501(c) non-profit organization. Fees/Dues are in US dollars. 2 Advertisement free: Member pages are having the rotating and changing banners removed. That space is part of the working page so that more text and graphics could be displayed. However, sponsors may be listed on a static text bar or menu. To prevent duplication, certain pages have static banners or link buttons. 3 Products: Currently anvilfire is selling Richard Postman's Anvils in America, posters from the book, anvilfire caps and the Dave Manzer Little Giant Video. As we find items we add them to the store. All the items in the store EXCEPT the On-line metals sales receive 10% Membership discounts. We only make 10% on the On-line metals sales and cannot discount them.
NOTE: WITH a member group we can and will continue to have public anvilfire pages AND the guru page.
WITHOUT the membership group anvilfire could possibly exist but the services would have to be drastically cut back.
This would include shutting down the guru page the Slack-Tub Pub and removing many of the high band width articles such as on the iForge page. .
The "pub" generates our highest "band width". That is the amount of transferred data. Currently a large part of our costs is supporting that band width.
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