As I have whinged and moaned about before on these pages, this year I started at medical school, and it was a whole new ballgame in terms of free time and financial situation. Unfortunately this has affected this website drastically and it has been disappointing both to me personally and to other people who gave it their time and attention.
Now it’s come to the point where I can no longer afford to pay the hosting costs for the site, and I can’t ask for any help since I do no work on it, and can’t guarantee I will be able to in the future. It’s not really fair to the site to leave it dragging on in its current moribund state.
Sadly this means that Bricks Down Under will be turned off in the next 2 or 3 weeks unless there’s anyone out there who wants to rescue it from death row.
I really believe this site has great potential. I know there are a lot of people out there who are very keen on LEGO in Australia, both in terms of the product and shopping information, and also just building a community of Aussie LEGO fans. I also get a lot of emails from regular non-AFOL folks who have just stumbled across it and are looking for information on events or where they can find a certain set. I was making a bit of money last year via commissions and advertising as well.
So if you are keen to take over the site and bring it to its full potential, please drop me a line at emily at bricksdownunder.com. I would love to see it go to a good home as I have put a lot of love into it back in the day. You can have the domain name and code, but you would need to find new web hosting as its current home is getting shut down.
I really want to say a big thank you to everyone who has been a part of the site, especially the regular forum users and contributors. Running BDU was a lot of fun for me, and I hope it can continue in some form or another. Keep on building!
Thanks for all the work you’ve put into the site over the years – it has been a fantastic resource for us all.
Good luck with your studies, and with snapping up the lego bargains at the campsie big w – which is my local as well
Brickventures Inc might be able to assist in some way. Contact me and we’ll work something out.
It would be sad indeed to see the site go. It is a great resource for Aussie Lego Fans and it inspired me to make my way all the way from Cairns to Melbourne for a convention. I would be happy to contribute in some way in terms of financial support for hosting and time support for the information side. Being in Cairns I am a bit cut off from the ‘real world’ but I seem to get enough junk mail to supply all of Australia so could do some catalog scanning, news scanning, lassoo searches etc. So whilst I would not want to take on the sole responsibility I would be more than happy to be part of a team.
Thanks again and good luck with your studies, I can only imagine the demands on your time.
Hi, I might be able to take over depending on cost/time. Can you email me to discuss? Either way best of luck with the new course
Hey, keen to keep this website open. would be happy to put in the time. maybe a few of us could band together? email me pls
Am very interested in taking this over! give us a yell.
I’d suggest hosting it on a free blog site such as Tumblr or Posterous. All you’d then need is to pay for the URL renewal every year.
The http://www.bricksdownunder.com URL will then be then set to a Tumblr page. There are a whole bunch of Tumblr templates to use.
I’m not sure what you can do about forum functionality though…
Hey Emily,
I’m saddened to hear that you won’t have the time for LEGO. (How could you?! Blasphemy!
)
I’m happy to host it on my server for you til you find a replacement admin or wish to take it back over yourself.
Just pop me an email or call and we’ll be happy to help you out.
Either way, good luck with your degree! You go girl!
Cheers,
Patty