We're RealSurf
A$12,759
of $10,000 targetyrs ago
Successful on 23rd Oct 2013 at 1:00PM.
RealSurf is Australia’s oldest community-powered surf website. In fact, we’re probably now Australia’s longest running surf website. RealSurf was founded in 1995 by yours truly, Don Norris. Called the Collaroy-Narrabeen surf report at first, it became RealSurf in 1996. The site evolved steadily and in 2002 I added the popular RealSurf Forums.Now, at the ripe old age of 18, RealSurf.com and the RealSurf Forums are ready for a re-design and an overhaul of their code. We will create a better looking, a more functional and a faster loading RealSurf site with your help. And by 'help' I don't mean just the dosh you're pledging,
Every Pledger becomes a Friend of RealSurf and as such you will, among other things, help to decide which final design concepts we go with for both the website and the forum. As a Friend of RealSurf, I'll be keeping you in the loop as we deliver our crowdfunded improvements and I'll be stretching my brain for other cool ways to thank you for your support. (See below for more about the Friends of RealSurf.)
Just for fun...
A growing part of our audience like to check us out with their smartphones and tablets, so we’re going to improve the way RealSurf looks and feels for those users too . And, we plan to take it one step further by developing our own app.
For all of its 18 years RealSurf has been powered by volunteers. Nobody, myself included, has ever had a salary. When something’s needed for RealSurf or the Forums, I either build or do it myself, or find a generous and talented volunteer. And that basic philosophy won’t be changing.
But for all that, there are times when RealSurf has to spend actual money.
Good designers and code wranglers don’t necessarily work for free. Even though it’s in the Cloud, RealSurf’s dedicated hosting, bandwidth and associated tech support still costs close to $4000 a year. And, if we want to build an app, the experts tell us that for anything worthy of the name, we’re looking at a minimum budget of $15k (and that’s not counting future revisions and support costs).
The good people at Pozible say that we should pick a financial target that is close to the minimum needed to move our project forward. While there’s no rule that says we can’t exceed our target (and that does happen, sometimes in spectacular fashion), the bottom line is that if we don’t make our goal, we don’t get a thing.
So, with that in mind, I’ve decided to set the bar at $10,000.
...Time for another video... this one was shot with the latest GoPro...
Of course I’ll do everything I can to not only reach the goal, but to exceed it by as large a margin as possible!
So, if the project succeeds, what is the plan?
From the moment we get to the target - whether it’s in the first week, or on the last day - I’ll start work on a Pledger survey to help identify which aspects of the current site and the forums our supporters would like to see improved, extended or otherwise changed. And I’ll also endeavour to find out what kind of features Pledgers want from a (basic) RealSurf app.
I anticipate that it should be possible to finish the survey within a fortnight of the crowdfunding campaign finishing. It’ll then need another week or so to synthesise the feedback and create the specifications I’ll need for a site re-design tender.
Once a designer has been selected, the first order of business will be for them to supply several different concepts which I can then put before the Pledger community. I am hopeful that this stage can be completed within a month.
Once our Pledgers pick the design they like best, the designer will get on with the task of earning their dough. Long experience with the website design, testing and implementation process has taught me that it always takes longer than you expect. My hope is that we’ll be pushing the go button on the new look by the start of summer.
Specifying and designing an app is going to be a challenging undertaking. My goal is to deliver a basic RealSurf app in the first quarter of 2014. App development is not cheap, so my focus will be on creating a simple but functional tool upon which we can build in the future.
RealSurf (a very brief history!)
From the beginning, RealSurf has been shaped by a slightly mysterious interaction between founder Don Norris’s idealism and that equally mysterious and impossible to define thing called Australian surf culture.
The site began when Don and his young family moved to Collaroy Plateau in 1995. As someone who has checked the waves almost every day since learning to surf in 1969, Don figured that maybe other surfers not lucky enough to live near the beach might like to know what was going on. And, wanting to learn something about building websites, he decided the best way to do so would be to make a page to tell surfers about the day’s surf conditions.
A lifelong conservationist, Don also hoped that by posting a report every morning he might be able in some small way to decrease the greenhouse emissions generated by inland surfers’ fruitless trips to check the beach on dud days.
A year or so after starting the site, he got an email from a chap who made the drive from Avalon to Manly every morning to catch the ferry to work. He offered to email Don a short description of the conditions from beaches other than the Collaroy-Narrabeen stretch.
His name was Roger Sayers and he’d been surfing up and down the entire east coast since the early 60’s. He combined that depth of experience with a knowledge of the weather systems that deliver the best conditions and not long after beginning to report, he started making a few swell predictions. He was so good at it, that we created The Goat’s surf forecast. His reliable weekly forecasts have been a feature of the site ever since. They are Australia's longest running online surf forecasts, or publicly available surf forecasts for that matter.
Over the years, dozens of surfers have contributed their own reports to the RealSurf community - some on a near daily basis for up to a decade (lookin’ at you Rob S, Matt B, Big Ben, Matt J, Brian and the Peter B’s 1, 2 & 3!). And every one of them did so on a purely voluntary basis.
RealSurf was not set up as a commercial enterprise and while it is not a charity in any legal sense, its primary focus will continue to be on surfing and surfers rather than profit-making. Happily, right around the turn of the century, Shari Hooper brought her considerable and wide ranging talents to the RealSurf project. The accounts have been shipshape ever since, but equally importantly her marketing skills and tireless work ethic have been pivotal to our financial survival.
If he’s not away from the beach, Don files a report every day of the week and on Saturday mornings he tells Simon Marnie on 702 ABC’s Weekend Show all about the surf conditions. As webmaster, he maintains and otherwise looks after all the other day to day tasks that come with running a website and a forum. Tech support has been supplied on a volunteer basis for over 15 years by our very own Mr Wizard, Ross Barker. And, the Forums would not be what they are without the continuous (and entirely volunteer) efforts of the stellar Trevor Garbett.
The site began when Don and his young family moved to Collaroy Plateau in 1995. As someone who has checked the waves almost every day since learning to surf in 1969, Don figured that maybe other surfers not lucky enough to live near the beach might like to know what was going on. And, wanting to learn something about building websites, he decided the best way to do so would be to make a page to tell surfers about the day’s surf conditions.
A lifelong conservationist, Don also hoped that by posting a report every morning he might be able in some small way to decrease the greenhouse emissions generated by inland surfers’ fruitless trips to check the beach on dud days.
A year or so after starting the site, he got an email from a chap who made the drive from Avalon to Manly every morning to catch the ferry to work. He offered to email Don a short description of the conditions from beaches other than the Collaroy-Narrabeen stretch.
His name was Roger Sayers and he’d been surfing up and down the entire east coast since the early 60’s. He combined that depth of experience with a knowledge of the weather systems that deliver the best conditions and not long after beginning to report, he started making a few swell predictions. He was so good at it, that we created The Goat’s surf forecast. His reliable weekly forecasts have been a feature of the site ever since. They are Australia's longest running online surf forecasts, or publicly available surf forecasts for that matter.
Over the years, dozens of surfers have contributed their own reports to the RealSurf community - some on a near daily basis for up to a decade (lookin’ at you Rob S, Matt B, Big Ben, Matt J, Brian and the Peter B’s 1, 2 & 3!). And every one of them did so on a purely voluntary basis.
RealSurf was not set up as a commercial enterprise and while it is not a charity in any legal sense, its primary focus will continue to be on surfing and surfers rather than profit-making. Happily, right around the turn of the century, Shari Hooper brought her considerable and wide ranging talents to the RealSurf project. The accounts have been shipshape ever since, but equally importantly her marketing skills and tireless work ethic have been pivotal to our financial survival.
If he’s not away from the beach, Don files a report every day of the week and on Saturday mornings he tells Simon Marnie on 702 ABC’s Weekend Show all about the surf conditions. As webmaster, he maintains and otherwise looks after all the other day to day tasks that come with running a website and a forum. Tech support has been supplied on a volunteer basis for over 15 years by our very own Mr Wizard, Ross Barker. And, the Forums would not be what they are without the continuous (and entirely volunteer) efforts of the stellar Trevor Garbett.
Friends of RealSurf
RealSurf is the original crowdsourcer!
Way back in 2002, when RealSurf had its first ever fundraiser, we decided our supporters should all become Friends of RealSurf. In addition to their financial support, we also invited the FoRS to help us out by acting as a sort of crowdsourced sounding board for various questions. We crowdsourced our logo, as well as the designs used on t-shirts we've produced on a number of occasions. You could even describe our volunteer surf reporter approach as a form of crowdsourcing.
If this project is successful, every Pledger will become a Friend of RealSurf. As I noted earlier, this will mean that you'll receive regular updates on the progress toward our re-desgin and, when the time comes to choose which concept we'll use, it will be the votes of Friends of RealSurf that make the decision.
I'm keen to find other ways to draw upon FoRS talents and experience in the future and I want to come up with some (I hope) cool ways to thank Pledgers for your support. For example, I am looking at how I might be able to offer FoRS discounts on my surf photos or what we might be able to do in terms of advertising rates on the site. And it may be that some of our FoRS will be interested in offering their fellow pledgers discounted products or services.
Anyway, it'll be fun to see what we can come up with for you generous folks!
Way back in 2002, when RealSurf had its first ever fundraiser, we decided our supporters should all become Friends of RealSurf. In addition to their financial support, we also invited the FoRS to help us out by acting as a sort of crowdsourced sounding board for various questions. We crowdsourced our logo, as well as the designs used on t-shirts we've produced on a number of occasions. You could even describe our volunteer surf reporter approach as a form of crowdsourcing.
If this project is successful, every Pledger will become a Friend of RealSurf. As I noted earlier, this will mean that you'll receive regular updates on the progress toward our re-desgin and, when the time comes to choose which concept we'll use, it will be the votes of Friends of RealSurf that make the decision.
I'm keen to find other ways to draw upon FoRS talents and experience in the future and I want to come up with some (I hope) cool ways to thank Pledgers for your support. For example, I am looking at how I might be able to offer FoRS discounts on my surf photos or what we might be able to do in terms of advertising rates on the site. And it may be that some of our FoRS will be interested in offering their fellow pledgers discounted products or services.
Anyway, it'll be fun to see what we can come up with for you generous folks!
The Challenges
If we don’t get to the target, I promise to do everything I can to keep RealSurf and the Forums going!
Your shout? Excellent! Much appreciated and good to have you on board. We'll be sending you a thank you email when we hit our target and as a Friend of RealSurf, we'll be inviting you to help choose the new design.
17 chosen
Est. delivery is Nov 13
You know what? One good turn deserves another - or three! Not only will you become a Friend of RealSurf and get a handsome thank-you email when we make our target, but keep an eye on your letterbox,'cause we'll be sending you a genuine RealSurf postcard. Oh, and we'd like to add your name to the RealSurfer appreciation page too!
49 chosen
Est. delivery is Nov 13
Along with our gratitude and status as a Friend of RealSurf, you will receive the thank-you email, the yewbewt postcard and an actual RealSurf stubbie-holder. Plus we'll be adding your name to the RealSurfer appreciation page. Oh, and next wave's yours!
55 chosen
Est. delivery is Nov 13
Most helpful indeed! We bow in your direction Friend of RealSurf. Of course you'll get the cool email mentioned above, and the postcard, and the stubbie holder, and we're going to put your name in bold on the RealSurfer appreciation page. But that's not all, if you send us a URL, we'll make sure your emboldened name links to it.
3 chosen
Est. delivery is Nov 13
Call us stoked! For your generous support Friend of RealSurf, we'll be sending you the email upon our success and we'll also send you a pack of all the different postcards Don's created for this campaign. Yeah, the stubbie holder's coming with 'em too. What's more, if you'll send us a 40x140 pixel graphic and a link, we'll proudly add it to the RealSurfer appreciation page. Next set wave's yours!
17 chosen
Est. delivery is Nov 13
Fantastic! Thanks so much Friend of RealSurf. As a token of our esteem we'll be sending you all the aforementioned items - only more. Along with a couple of stubbie holders and postcard packs, we'll add your 100x300 pixel graphic (linked of course) to the RealSurf appreciation page - and we're going to run a text credit for you on our front page for a week out of every month for the next year.
8 chosen
Est. delivery is Nov 13
We are truly humbled dear Friend of RealSurf. Yes, we'll be sending the other rewards, but we're doubling the stubbie holder and card pack counts to 4 each. Your linked 100x300 pixel graphic will run on the RealSurfer appreciation page, and we'll be offering you a front page 140x40 graphic for a week out of every month for the next year. And, Don will be happy to provide a 2-hour Sydney surf photo session.
2 chosen / 8 available
Est. delivery is Nov 13
Bailey's Sydney private tours (http://baileys-sydney.com/) will take you and up to 4 guests on the day tour of your choice. A tour for people who don't like tours; you stop when and where you want and you travel at your desired pace - off the beaten tourist track. Great for visiting friends or business colleagues. Or... Peter will take you, a mate and Don on a personal surfari anywhere agreed upon by all concerned between the 'gong and the Hunter. (you also get all $500 level rewards.)
0 chosen / 1 available
Est. delivery is Nov 13
Every good thing we've heard about you is true! It's only a little thing, but we'll be sending you half a dozen stubbie holders and a similar stack of postcard packs. We'll be setting aside a 300x250 pixel space at the top of the RealSurfer appreciation page, and we'll find a spot on our front page for a 100x300 slot one week out of every month for a year. Don will shoot surf pictures of you on two different occasions in Sydney. Plus, he'd be stoked to shout you a coffee or a beer after.
0 chosen / 5 available
Est. delivery is Nov 13