Those of you who frequent the FUMBBL forums noticed that I recently made a callout for suggestions for fun things to do for those who participate in a donation drive to do a server upgrade.

The background to the donation drive is that Borak, the FUMBBL database server is getting quite old (8+ years) and I would very much like to replace the machine with something newer before it breaks down. Doing this proactively reduces downtime significantly, and at the same time reduces my stress levels :)

Plenty of suggestions were made in the forum post, and I am now ready to officially start the donation drive.

For those of you who donate during this donation drive, a new little icon will show up on your overview in order to signify that you participated in the donation drive (and this icon is seen by others viewing your coach page as well). In addition to this, those who donate $25 or more will be given the opportunity to perform a team service from the following list:

* Unretire a team
* Rename a team (swapping with another team of yours, or take another coach's team name if they are retired and have at most 5 games played). Some restrictions may apply here for thematic reasons.
* Unretire a player on a team not currently involved in a tournament. This can't take positionals beyond the normal limits. Unretired players must be alive and will maintain injuries.
* Limited division transfer. This allows a team to transfer from Blackbox to Ranked or League, or a team from Ranked to transfer to League.
* Team publicity stunt. Set a team's fan factor to 7.
* Team reorganization. Lets you do basic reorganization things to a team such as firing your apothecary or reassigning player numbers.

I've retroactively applied the Saved Borak icon to coaches who have donated during this month (september). If you have donated $25 or more and want to utilize one of the team services as listed above, get in touch with me with a reference to the PayPal item # (or anything that lets me identify the transaction) and I'll assist you. For multiple services, or if you have some custom request in the same vein as the ones listed, get in touch with me (Christer) through PM and I'll work with you to find a suitable solution :)

This special donation drive will run until the end of the month, after which the icon will no longer be applied to your coach page, and team services stop being available. Please note that this means that the services can't be saved for the future beyond this month (this is mostly for logistical reasons).

Thank you all for your support!

Edit: To clarify the time-limit for the "Saved Borak" icon: Donating during this month will make it show up on your account permanently. The time-limit simply means that coaches donating after this donation drive won't get the icon applied to their accounts.

Edit 2: This donation drive has now ended. Thank you all for your support!