Subscribe Now!

[The Kite Shoppe]

I for one, sure appreciate having KiteLife available for information, contacts, sources, photos, videos, and in general...a great place for Kiters...from far and wide....to gather!

Thank you John, for continuing this dream!

Now...I missed getting Ray Bethell's video downloaded and saved on my computer. I didn't get a chance to show it to my 86 year old mom...who thinks she's too old to do anything! I am patient, and can wait till October....when John has space to upload it again.

BUT.....if more kind folks would care to register to subscribe.....

I wouldn't have to wait!!

Theresa

[John Barresi]

Here's a copy of the email just sent out to our mailing list:

Greetings Kitelife readers!

I'd like to take this moment to appeal to your love of kiting media... And ask for your help.

The way things are set up now, we share a server with other users, limiting us to a certain amount of space and bandwidth... For only about 80% more than we're paying now, we can increase our space and bandwidth by over 900% and put us into a position where there is no limit to the resources and downloads we can provide to our readership!

We're sitting on 15 new videos, which we'll be looking to upload once there are enough subscribers to support moving to a dedicated server... The amount of bandwidth used by visitors to our video section is staggering, and would indicate that they are greatly valued!

On the "coming soon" list:

• 1990 AKA Grand Nationals - Masters Individual Ballet finals (top 4)

• 1991 Great Lakes SKC - Masters Team Ballet (all teams)

• 1993 Hawaii Challenge - The "Big Picture" flies for the first time

• 1993 Paradise Cup - Scott Aughenbaugh's Ballet

• 1993 World Cup - Team High Performance championship ballet

• 1994 Hawaii Challenge - Team High Performance team ballet

And more... Much, much more.

Beginning early next year, we'll also begin publishing every issue of Kitelines Magazine ever printed... Some of you may recall this magazine which spun off of the AKA's original newsletter "KiteTales" in the 1970s. We've made arrangements with the owner of this historical publication to make the entire archive available via the world wide web, complete with every kite plan, kite review, article and interview in original format.

We would also like to put Ray Bethell's promo ballet back into our video archives, but could not support the popularity it found on the world wide web... It exhausted most of our monthly bandwidth resources only a week into September, having been viewed over 8,000 times in a mere 5 days!

Other plans for Kitelife include compiling all possible sport kite competition results since the late 80s into one place, and profiling legendary past competitors into a sort of hall of fame... No one organization has ever taken responsibility for preserving the history of our sport, and we would like to step up to put this dream into motion.

In addition, we're looking at doing daily updates from four incredible events every year:

• Kite Trade Association Convention

• Wildwood International Kite Festival

• Washington State International Kite Festival

• AKA Grand Nationals and Convention

Consider for a moment, how would you feel if this valuable resource was suddenly no longer available? This sentiment represents how important Kitelife actually is to those who browse our pages, although many take it for granted and don't realize the expenses that go into maintaining Kitelife.

While we're in no danger of collapse (never!), and will continue to provide our services for free, we've hit our "digital ceiling" for the time being... And need YOUR help!

We would love to see roughly 50 new subscribers or more by the beginning of next year in order to make this happen, and encourage you to weigh the sheer volume of kiting material we provide... Our love of all things kiting... And compare it to any other resource currently available. We believe you'll find us to already be among the most balanced and sizable archives strictly devoted to kiting.

My own history in kiting began in 1990 at the age of 15, as a sport kite competitor... Since then I've seen many changes for better and worse, have experienced and taken part in quite a number of facets of kiting, growing to love every aspect of our pastime and the people who are a part of the global community... I could not begin the to express the deep feeling I have for kiting as a whole, the affect it can bring to humanity, or sufficiently impress upon you my dedication to being an ongoing contributor to our history and growth.

We need your help as an individual, don't leave it up to everyone else... It begins with you. We're talking about $2.95 a month, or 10 cents a day... To help bring this dream to fruition, it would take less than you spend on a single day's lunch.

Heart to heart, can you feel what drives Kitelife?

Please help us make it happen - http://www.kitelife.com/subscribe

We look forward to bringing you our traditional daily updates from the AKA Convention in Seaside, and releasing our new issue (#38) on October 1st... See you on the field!