We NEED Dick Greenhaus! Well, some of us WANT him a lot -- to be available as a full time resource for the Mudcat. There is so much he could accomplish that way to expand the DT, add more of the posted words and tunes that are being contributed, maybe even follow up on some of the technical problems.

If you read the "Help with the use of Digital Tradition Folk" thread, you can see how important Dick's knowledge and efforts are. Dick wrote all the software for the downloadable versions of the DT. Dick and Max together came up with the plan for combining the DT with the mudcat. Dick personally collected and entered a huge number of the songs. He reads almost every thread. And of course long-time mudcatters have seen plenty of examples of his broad knowledge of music, his cheerful willingness to work hard and long for the good of this site, and his cheeky sense of humor, which probably has nothing to do with this thread but illustrates his many other sterling qualities.

Also, he could write The Mudcat Book. No one is better qualified (though several amongst us come awfully close.) Dick put up the first online DT, he and Max created the Mudcat, and Dick has read most of the words ever posted here. He knows the early history. the people who made it happen, the different twists and turns it has taken. He has been a professional writer "off and on" for 45 years and full time for the last 10 years. And he's in the perfect position to include Max's point of view.

Both Max and Dick would love to have Dick full time on the site, and I believe it's possible if the community supports it. The problem is money, as usual, but it's not a huge problem: He would only need about an extra $10,000 per year to retire and 'Cat around full time.

Any suggestions how to swing it financially? (Or, alternatively, any politely worded comments about what a dumb idea it is?) He was given a couple of grants for Digitrad in past years but nothing that would let him work full time, which is what I'm advocating. Dick and Max are very concerned and most reluctant to charge for any services they've been providing for free, but I convinced them at least to let me put it up for discussion.

One alternative is to institute a modest charge for a user name and Mudcat membership, i.e. to be able to post to the threads. It would be a really modest charge, Bill and I have very little extra cash -- actually, we have NO extra cash -- so we aren't going to support a change that would keep us away from our Mudcat. But how about $5 to $8 per year? And, say, you could read the forum without charge, but to post you need to be a member.

That in itself wouldn't generate the amount of cash needed, but it's a suggestion to get the ball rolling. I can think of lots of other ideas but I want to throw it out to the community.

Knowing this group, suggestions and counter-suggestions will snowball into a full-blown game of Calvinball before you can say "The Mudcat would be more fun if Dick could spend more time working on it!"

- Rita F