Dear Batch’64 Bloggers,
Time has come to renew our yearly subscription for ’20. Since it’s inception in 2015, we all enjoyed the exchange of information, updates on fellow batch- mates , entertainment and other posts of common interest. The site was also instrumental in organizing the RU’19 which was well attended and successful.
Unfortunately, the viewership and click rate of the followers seems to have diminished in the first half of this year. As shown below, stats for 2019 shows a dramatic drop from 2018. ( 70,000 in ’18 to 23,000 for the first 7 months of ’19.)
The current plan for the blog is a premium category costing us $300 annually ($25/mo). The plan includes the cost of the domain , and unlimited storage and uploading capacity.
Under these conditions, unless there is a resurgence of interest, it may not be feasible to continue the blog in its current version. If you are a faithful follower, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Please indicate your willingness to make a nominal contribution if requested. If not I will be glad to switch to a less expensive “personal blog” version with very limited uploading capacity. It will only cost us around $8 per month. I will look in to downloading the massive amount of the accumilated data to my computer and cancelling the current subscription, when it expires in October ’19. Any ideas and on this matter is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Gunasiri Samarasinghe, Web Master
PS: Please do not send me any money at this time.
News, Views and More from Batch'64, Faculty of Medicine, Colombo, SriLanka 
Dear Sam,
Good that you posted this message – Best way to find out how many wants to continue.
There are various categories in our batch:
1) Some actively take part – will want to continue
2) Some take part but wont care if it is closed or not.
3) Some may not be happy to close but won’t take part.
4) Some won’t even see this message.
5) Some are too busy to even check the email
6) Some say that they don’t receive this mailing
7) Some enjoy reading regularly but don’t bother to comment.
8) some won”t even read Birthday wishing.
10)Some read the Birthday wishing & don”t bother acknowledging or thanking.
This my opinion – No offence to anyone
Sam, My suggestion is to wait & see how many replies you get. Depending on that you can decide whether to continue or even to reduce to the next lower category of subscription.
Seelan
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Dear Sam and colleagues, First we must be thankful to Sam who has been an asset to our batch in keeping this forum going.This is unique in that it has survived for so long.I see that many have lost interest and I am sure it is bound to scale down as we all age and do not have time or interest to keep in touch.However, as things are, I note that the birthday greetings at least is going on and there is interest in keeping in touch at least on birthdays.
What we see as a disinterest is in my opinion the reality that we are all growing old and living in our own world.
I am not a regular contributor or on the birthday list but I do visit the site whenever there is a post to keep in touch.
In my view, this is a unique opportunity provided by a painstaking effort by Sam. I am willling to contribute to keep it going but it has to be a majority decision.Why not we all vote and agree on something definite.It will also be useful to find out whether we are all able to contribute to the upkeep and what would be the annual fee.If we get 50 Ayes at 5 dollars per person per year, we could still have it going until we all succumb to Alzheimer’s.!! What does the sixtfourbatchcolombo think ? Please write to Sam to make it easy. Regards to all.Eddie.
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Hi Sam
I am happy to go with the majority decision. Praxy
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Hi Sam – Piching and I are willing to contribute towards the expenses of continuing our blog as is ,without any compromise.Very few of us are working full time and others work part time and the majority of us are retired. Therefore most of us have the time to look at it, I think.
Seelan has analyzed and enumerated the reasons beautifully why the popularity of the blog has diminished and there is no reason for me to repeat it.Thanks Seelan.
Thanks Eddie for your comments as well.
Nisantha and Piching
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My dear mates,
I congratulate Praxy, Seelan, Eddie, Piching & Nisantha for their comments and ideas on how
to proceed with Batch’64 Blog,
Sam not only created and painstakingly continue to invest a huge amount of valuable time
and resources, for the benefit of our batch.
For that my admiration and thanks are offered to our dear Sam.
Having enjoyed the opportunity created and continuing so far for a good part of five years
I too like to join the rest of mates, who are willing to contribute to keep RU64 blog site going.
Thanks
Ariya
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I continue to enjoy this blog and am ever grateful to Sam for keeping it going. I will abide by the majority decision. Appreciate Seelan’s analysis.
Narme
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Hi Sam
WE would like the blog to continue and are happy to contribute towards its survival. We enjoy reading the blogs and comments and this keep us in touch with others. I noticed the lack of interest in the blog in recent months, even before you sent the message
Good luck
Satha and Selvi
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contributions as you know will be forthcoming if you have the time patience and kindness to continue with this task we certainly could collect this amount in sri lanka in oct,thanks
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Dear colleagues,The response is as predicted by Seelan,poor.We have had only 8 colleagues who responded!!It is sad that we have to give up on this this year.Why don’t we raise the money, just one more time for 2019/2020 year and then decide to wind up if the interest drops off.?? As Paul says we could either raise the funds in Sri Lanka or abroad.If in SLR it will be about SLR 50,000 the equivalent of 300 USD.Sam it is best that you decide what we should do.If USD option is chosen we need bank account details from Sam and if in SLR a local bank account. This is my take but agree to go with the rest who have responded.Eddie.
P.S. Our blog site, it must be said, has a reasonably wide presence.I was surprised when Sam, wrote to me that there was an enquiry from US from a long lost friend of mine,in search of me after the April ,Batticaloa bombing.!! As a result,I was pleased to make contact with a colleague I had met in UK many years ago.This , I must say came as a surprise as the only information this doctor had,was that my initial degree was from Colombo and that I also had links with Batticaloa.The result is that I now have contact with a long lost friend.
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Eddie,
I have always enjoyed your posts. I think the blog is more popular than one would think judging by the number of views by the batchmates 20000 out of 23000 this year so far. Visitor views only 3000 Let’s see what happens.
Sam
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Dear Sam
I am happy to go with the majority decision even though I don’t contribute or comment much, I value it as a way of keeping in touch with colleagues.
Swarna
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Thank you all for your valuable comments. If there is sufficient interest I will be glad to reactivate the site by October 6th when the site expires.
Sam
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Hi Sam, It is late August and we need to make a firm decision now.Shall we go the basis that we have 10 colleagues who have put their hand up at $ 30 per person !! .Please forward me your bank details and I will transfer the amount to kick this off and I am sure the others will follow .It is 50 years since we graduated and it will be a shame if we suddenly close shop.Shall we give it one more year.???.More comments please. Eddie
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Dear Sam,
I agree with Eddie Your blog is the next best thing happened since sliced bread.
Please forward bank details because assome of us are addicted to your blog.
How beautifully you weaved the net so that mates in four continents have almost a personal Face Book.
Ariya
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