Online Edition: April 2009 Vol. XV, No. 2

Letter to the Readers

Eastertide 2009

Dear AB Readers,

The current economic situation has affected many people — including many of us — so we certainly hesitate to ask you for financial help at this time. But…

Our computers are getting rickety. This is not surprising, since it has been nearly five years since we’ve done any upgrading. So it is getting harder and harder for us to keep updating our web site and producing the Adoremus Bulletin and other printed materials for you. We continue to lose functionality and, though we are very “creative” with workarounds, we have been increasingly hampered by our outdated equipment.

Just last month we had a major crash that set us back two full weeks and cost us more than $2,000 just to get back to where we started from. (Bad news.)

(Good news.) Getting these repairs done provided us with the “opportunity” to learn that we are worse off than we originally thought. No, really, this is good news. Now we know what we need to do to make sure similar problems don’t arise in the future.

The first estimate we got made our eyes pop out of our heads. But we have worked with the technicians to pare down costs wherever and however we can. There are some areas where we are quite behind the curve, but we think we can make it work for a few more years. There are others where we can’t come up with another solution — and we want to get these things mended, not just bandaged, so that we can also last a few years into the future with these upgrades.

It is in this spirit that we come to you with hat in hand and ask for your help for this special purpose.

It is a common experience of donation-reliant organizations that it is hardest to raise money for operating costs — typically it is easier to find money for a special project or event. So we know this doesn’t sound exciting — but we try hard not to beg for such unusual operating expenses very often. The last time was in the winter of 2004-05, when we incurred extraordinary expenses when we moved into our first real office.

In this issue of AB you can begin see some results of our computer upgrades to this point. We hope that you will consider making even a very small donation to help with what we still need to do. We assure you that we’ll spend every dollar that you send us carefully and wisely.

And, as always, we ask for your prayers for our work.

With sincere wishes for a Blessed Eastertide, and heartfelt thanks,

– Adoremus Staff