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perhaps I should just gift LFGSS in it's entirety to LFGSS CIC
This (apart from the gift element) was a thought which occurred to me last time I looked at this thread.
since I was offered money for LFGSS
What order of magnitude? The comedy online site valuation tools (and I use the term advisedly) give valuations of anywhere from $10 to £130k. I ask because the thought which occurred to me was to have the CIC/Cycling Club acquire lfgss.com by a buy-out funded by a one-off subscription from cycling club members. In the olden days, clubs would sometimes have a subscription to purchase a memorial trophy, for example, and raise total sums of the order of a month's salary of the average member, but I wasn't sure whether the amount which could be easily raised this way would be comically short of a commercial valuation.
In the light of your considering gifting it to the CIC, the commercial value is less relevant, but my understanding is that lfgss.com has had it's historic deficits funded by you personally, so some contribution towards making up those losses would seem to be the least we could do in respect of any transfer of ownership.
gbj_tester-
The first offer for LFGSS was about 3-4 years ago and was ~£250k + a permanent position with 2-3 year lock-in at "above market rate", making the total offer shy of £500k.
The second offer for LFGSS was early this year and was for the site content and users, no tech or requirement that I continue. That company is an advertising company, and just wanted to purchase and own the site traffic, they offered £136k cash and I could walk away the next day.
LFGSS could afford neither, and if I were selling LFGSS to a third party I would certainly want to extract as much value as possible. But if the buyer were the community, then as a member of the community I would prefer that it were acquired without being encumbered by debt.
Yes a few grand would be nice, but I've know enough of the world to know that it isn't actually a life transformational amount - the first offer was, the second offer maybe was.
When it comes down to it, if I think about what I would value it isn't the cash, it's something I lost in my youth that I still struggle with: the freedom to travel to the USA and to not be restricted by the shadow of my past. The money is actually irrelevant, but recognition that could change things for me is something I desperately want. So gifting the site in it's entirety in return for community support for recognition I would do. That's a thing that could be life transformational.
Velocio
Unsure.
I'm not sure I care enough to fight that side of things (LFGSS costs) at the moment. I suspect I'll throw it on credit card, wait until it stabilises and then will see whether I've come out behind, about the same or ahead (and if ahead, LFGSS CIC can have it as a donation).
Most of the LFGSS donations have wound down since the migration, and whilst there are some (over £200 per month) and together with LFGSS affiliate revenue (perhaps £500 per month) it should be enough. That stuff is still a little messy given that the change was so recent and the costs haven't stabilised long enough for me to know (LFGSS has some annual costs as well as monthly costs... most of the monthly costs were raw hosting, so those are predictable but revenue and other costs are less predictable).
Seriously though... there's not going to be a service outage, I'll just throw my credit card in front of that and will defer to a future time when I'm employed again the tidying up of that.
I've been think for a while now, since I was offered money for LFGSS and felt odd about it (again)... perhaps I should just gift LFGSS in it's entirety to LFGSS CIC. That would make it a non-profit and once settled into that it would provide enough stability and transparency to make the covering of costs and doing of other things easier - less panic-driven and messy.
But then again... maybe I'm just getting to a point of exhaustion because that reads a bit like a half-hearted self-destruct mechanism. Who knows... I'm going to defer any rash decisions and let credit cards act as a buffer zone.