CROWD FUNDING ACTION CHALLENGE BIG

FOR A BETTER BIG wEBSITE WITH A NEW LOOK AND FEEL!

Click below to immediately go to a specific alinea or to the Bid and Stock status webpage:

• Bid and Stock status webpage
• Summary
• What about the costs?
• What if...
• How can you help BIG?
• Detailed Information.
• How can you transfer money to BIG?

SUMMARY

As you know, BIG is a non-profit organization and we always have refused funding by external companies so we could follow our own path and didn't need to take decisions that were enforced by sponsors. And we still feel this is the best, to be an independent cyclo climbing club that is there for everyone. But this strategy combined with the facts that contribution for 1 year is not very high and we only have a very limited amount of contributing members also implies we have a very limited budget. Now this has never been a problem in the past but with our new ambitions we need some additional funding and we thought that an internal crowdsourcing action along the members could help us to get the required funding without compromising our independency.

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WHAT ABOUT THE COSTS?

We would like to raise € 10,000.- to be able to finance the design and implementation of a new overall graphical design for BIG (a so called house style) by Menno Anker. Do you like how this page looks? Well, this page already reflects already a bit the direction we are thinking of. Menno is an enthusiastic cyclist himself and designed several projects related to the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in Utrecht 2015. Here you can find some examples of his work and here also. And to the right you can see an example too. The new graphical design will be an improvement for the BIG-community. The new design will address amongst others the interaction between website and members. It will make the interaction easier, more user friendly and have a clear&modern style. So it will be better accessible for new members too.

Menno's design will then be applied to:

• The new website (currently being developed for BIG by Twins●IT
• The diplomas for the different BIG rankings and BIG zones.
• BIG cycling clothes.
• A BIG logo

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WHAT IF....

We raise less than € 10,000.-?

Then we focus on the new design for the BIG website as this is needed by Twins●IT to finalize the new website for BIG.

We raise more than € 10,000.-?

The additional money will be used to request Twins●IT to develop some new features like:

• A BIG App that can be used on your smartphone to automatically claim a BIG based on the GPS coordinates of the place where you started and the top. Depending on the amount we can spend on the development we could add an option to automatically post an entry on Facebook or create a Tweet (if you want that to happen) that a BIG has been successfully cycled by you and we can add some details such as a graph that shows the gradients and an impressive picture of the BIG.
• Add some new features to the BIG website like:
  • A possibility to subscribe to a BIG event like an annual meeting, regional meeting or Crossroad so you get update when new information is available for these events.
  • To be able to sort your own BIGs on length, maximum gradient, Energy Points and see the result of that sorting.
  • To compare 2 or more BIGs.
  • Etc.

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How can you help BIG?

Become a contributing member for 1 year.

In case you are not yet a contributing member then we kindly ask you to become a contributing member for at least 1 year and we hope you'll stay a contributing member.

The contribution for 1 year is € 10.- for a single membership or € 15.- for a family membership. In the Detailed Information chapter you can find the reasons for the increase of the contribution.

Read here how you can pay your contribution to BIG.

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Donate money.

In case you are a contributing member already then we kindly ask you if you are willing to donate some extra money. You could donate for example € 0.10, € 0.25€ of € 0.50 per BIG that you cycled.

Read here how you can donate money to BIG.

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Buy via BIG.

BIG has a number of items on sale where BIG has closed a deal that a part of the price when an item is sold is for BIG. This to help to realize the new BIG website. The following items can be bought via BIG to support BIG:

• Our Graphical Designer, Menno Anker, who helps us to create a new look and feel for the BIG webpages also has created some posters that relate to cycling which he sells.

  The posters (A3 format) cost € 35.- including the costs to ship the poster in a secure way to you. You can get your name, date and time (either the time used to cycle the ascent or the time when you reached the summit) printed on the poster even!
  You can look here which posters are on sale and below you can see a small selection:

  

  

  

1. To buy a poster, you transfer € 35.- to BIG. Read here how you can transfer money to BIG.
2. And mail BIG the following information:
   1. Your name.
   2. The name of the poster you want.
   3. The address where have to have the poster send to.
   Optionally if you want this information on the poster:
   4. the name of the person who cycled this ascent.
   5. the date this ascent was cycled.
   6. the time it took to cycle this ascent or the time the summit of this ascent was reached.

• And we have closed a deal with Hank Barlow who wrote a wondeful book on cycling in the Rhône-Alps region. Hank has offered us that when you buy this book via BIG that he donates a part of the money to BIG.
  Note that we have only 10 copies of the book on sale!

• 10x "Switchbacks, Vol. 1 Rhône-Alps (Some Lesser Known Cols)" (Language English).
  

  I bought this book myself and I enjoy the writing style of the author as well as the fact that much of what he writes you will recognize as a cycloclimber and will make you smile from ear to ear. Not too many BIGs are listed in the book (Alpe d'Huez is listed but only partly described but the much more interesting backside of Alpe d'Huez is in it in full: Col du Sarenne; Col de Noyer is there though and Col du Granon is also mentioned) but you'll read about the true gems. You'll read about cols that are not BIGs and that are not so wellknown as there are enough other books on the well known Cols. But these cols you must ride as they will be an everlasting memory afterwards.

  This book costs € 60.- Now this price may seem high but bear in mind that the book weighs close to 800 grams and when we need to ship it safely to you it will be an International destination and hence the postal charges will take up almost a quarter of the price of the book. And with the book come GPX files so you can easily locate these rides and enjoy them yourself!

  For more information on this beautiful book, click here.

  Click here to see how many books we still have for sale.

• "Dream Road Bike Tour of the Alps" (Language English).
  

  For members who have never cycled a tour in the mountains it can serve as a guideline and an inspiration. For members who have cycled tours in the mountains it's a nice book to read that may provide new ideas on the organisation of a tour. And an inspiration to cyce the tour as described by Jerry yourself!
  

  This book costs € 25.- and this includes the postal charges for delivering the bookto you.

  For more information on this beautiful book, click here.

Detailed Information

Historical background:

Early this year we had a meeting in Namur where amongst others the contribution was discussed to see if we should raise it. The workgroup responsible worked well and decided the best way forward would be to incite members to contribute by giving them interesting and useful functionalities in the website if they contribute. This approach will also be used by BIG by using part of the money from the Crowdfunding for developing new functionalities that contributing members can use.

But to cover the creation of a new website with a new graphical design and to maintain it the coming years we decided to change the contributions as follows:

1. An increase of the contribution for a single and family membership. The contribution for a single membership for one year is doubled. Now that may sound outrageous but over the last 8 years we did not have any increase in contribution at all and the contribution for 1 year was just 5 Euro's. So even when it is doubled from 5 to 10 Euro, the contribution is still low considering that it is for 1 year.
   The contribution for a family is kept at 15 Euro's but does no longer include the BIG Review magazine which has to be ordered separately now and will cost 10 Euro's.
2. Free membership will only be offered up and until BIG level 5 is reached (164 BIGs) The reason behind this change in philosophy is that when members have cycled 164 BIGs that they have invested quite of lot of time, effort and money in the gathering of this amount of BIGs. The members who reach this level are serious and committed. Hence the fact that would have to pay a little contribution should not be a problem.

Hence the Executive committee of BIG has decided to increase the contribution to have enough money to keep the website maintained and up to date over the coming years. To finance a professional graphical designer to develop the new house style for BIG and to be able to request new functionality for the BIG website we now organize a Crowd Funding action to get the funds we need to realize this also.

Now let us explain in more detail what we will use the money for:

New BIG Website:

The current website is 7 years old and reached it limits with regards to the amount of members already some years ago. It needs to be designed from scratch so it can cope with the amount of members we have and with future growth.

As stated above, we have now a so called Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the company Twins●IT so we can report errors (bugs) and that these will be fixed in an agreed time frame. This SLA comes at a price of course and we pay Twins●IT also for the hosting of our website and for the storage of the pictures you can upload.

 

Current graphical design BIG website:

The current graphical design of the website was chosen at the time by our webmaster. Most of us know it for years and have found our way in the menus. But we think you agree that the menu structure could be better, more intuitive and user friendly. The current website offers a lot of functions and hence you see a lot of menu options on the left side of the page but also on the right hand side. Then there is the News, Spotlight, Birthdays and the Feed that shows what your BIG friends have been doing. It's a lot what has been packed on just 1 page. The current graphical design of the BIG website is shown to the right.

 

New graphical design BIG website:

With the new graphical design we aim at a more clean view where menus only appear when you need them. We will aim at a more intuitive way of working (i.e. that you don't need to search so much to find the data you need or the action you want to perform) and we will make a distinction of what information we show to BIG members when they logon to their BIG account and when non BIG members land on our side.

Current graphical design BIG diplomas:

The diplomas we offer have an outdated look. And you can clearly see that these were not created by a graphical designer. They were created with enthusiasm but lack a professional touch as you can see to the right.

 

New graphical design BIG diplomas:

With the help of our graphical designer Menno Anker we will be able to offer diplomas that BIG members can proudly show to other people! They will look powerful and beautiful.

Current BIG clothes:

Shown to the right. Now the current outfit is beautiful though it dates from 2008.

 

New graphical design BIG clothes:

But when we get a new house style then it would be nice to apply that to the BIG clothes also. There should be an echo of how the webpages look in the BIG clothes so you immediately recognize other BIG members from far away even.

How can you transfer money to BIG?

Here are the ways how you can transfer money to BIG.

1. Via European Bank transfer
   B.I.G - Fortis Bank Belgrade Belgium
   IBAN: BE39 0012 4271 7419
   BIC: GEBABEBB
2. Via Paypal
   
   1. Start payment by clicking on the "Donate" button below.
   2. Then you are directed to Paypal where you fill in the amount of money you want to transfer.
      And the reason for the transfer (e.g. Contribution, donation, to buy an article, to bid for and article).
   3. Fill in your login credentials for PayPal (email address&password) and click "login".
   4. Then follow the instructions of Paypal to finalize the money transfer.