Alright guys, we’ve fast reached a place where the running and maintenance and well, popularity, of this place is making itself incompatible with holding down a full time job- which means I need to bite the bullet and try to make a living off this place or yanno, seriously consider walking away.
I’ve really loved developing this place, growing it and spending time here and I hope you guys have been enjoying it too. Because this is a place that has grown because of you guys and for you guys, I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m just grabbing for the cash or gouging but, like I’ve said many times, servers don’t pay for themselves and unfortuantely, contrary to popular rumour, we don’t actually have 9 houses and need to be able to feed the kids and pay the mortgage. Shocking. I know.
Read the rest of this heart-felt appeal- and a new competition- over the break.
So, up until now, TooSerious has been a labour of love but I’d love to be able to have the freedom to dedicate more time to the place and really realise its potential but I need your help to get there. I really don’t want to walk away or let the place fall into disrepair cause hey, I’m quite excited about maybe having the opportunity to make TooSerious even better. I’ve got a whole bunch of ideas on improvements I’d love to add and a list as long as my arm of fixes and tweaks that would add at least 40% more awesome to the joint and I’d love to have the time to get them in.
To this end, over the next couple of days, you’ll probably notice some new ad spaces popping up over the site. Yep- I’ll be cramming them in where-ever I can fit em! 
Now, before I go on, I just feel the need to say- a part of me hurts to be “selling out”, but I reckon we’re hitting a good balance here.
So, firstly, we’re going to try to keep the sponsorships for the newsletter which, I’m hoping, means we’ll be offering you guys some great deals- and personally, I reckon the last one worked out pretty well. What we’ll also be doing though, is for those of you who don’t mind checking the little box on your profile page, we’ll also be doing the occasional advertising newsletter. For these, we’ll get sent an ad with a deal a company wants to offer you guys that will be relevant and hopefully useful and then we send out the email. Your email addresses and details stay with us at all times, they wont be too frequent and we’ll only send them out if we think that there’s something in it for you guys who’ve signed up to get them (think, free bets and discounted booze) so… not just useless spam.
Now, here’s the deal- Ads that pay well don’t sign themselves up and the best way we can bring onboard advertisers who’ll pay the money to keep this show on the road is by having more registered users. I know that there’s a bunch of you out there who have friends who read along but aren’t signed up, and we really want people who use the site and play SuperCoach in here to keep growing our community and keeping it fun, so I thought we could make a game of this registration business.
I’m going to kick off a referral competition hopefully on Wednesday. He who brings in the most friends wins. And, hopefully, we’ll be able to dredge up a few prizes for a few randomly selected people who’ve joined in and given their support to the site.
For my part, I’ll be making some referal links and buttons to put on blogs and in signatures for forums but… we need something to play for so I’m going to put out the call for sponsors. If any of you guys have a business that you’d like to promote whilst giving us a big assist- here’s your chance! You can donate the goods and products of your business like iScent did last year with the perfume giveaways or you can make like Shaun from Bladerunner Property Services and use your hard earned to donate something fun if your business doesn’t lend itself to giveaways directly. (By the way, check that sight out if you’re in the Mornington Peninsula area and need some garden maintenence- they have been fantastic sponsors and supporters of this place!)
So that’s it, ads, opt-in emails and a drive to raise the number of registered users, that’s not too bad is it!? 
That said, there’s other ways you can help support TooSerious:
1) Register! (Yes, talking to you Lurky McLurker!) You’re helping us out and getting all the benefits that come from logging in- you can upload your teams so that you can use all the tools to their best advantage as well as being able to join in with the discussion on the blog and in the forum.
2) Sign up for the newsletters and emails. The newsletters will always have some extra content in terms of articles and some nifty tools that are relevant to the issues of the week, really I’m looking forward to building this newsletter up- It’s good fun to write.
3) Advertise with us! If you have a business, we have some space to promote you. Get in touch. 
4) Donate. As always, we are extremely grateful for those of you who choose to support the site directly and donate. You guys have made it possible to get this far. There are a bunch of benefits for doing so like being able to upload unlimited teams in the league tracker and joining in the donor topics in the forum as well as the warm fuzzies you get from being able to help keep TooSerious up and running.
Posted in 
Oh, and just by and by, signing up for the newsletter can be done as follows
How to sign up for the TS Newsletter.
Sign in or register.
Go to “Profile†(on the side bar to the right when you’re logged in) then you should see a spot where an avatar should go and under it “That’s You [edit]“. Click [edit] and it’ll bring up a form with all the details you filled in when you signed up. Scroll down and under the basic details, you’ll find:
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Hi Walesy,
I’ve always been a strong supporter of small businesses and businesses built from a scratch, from a hint, an idea, a hobby and a pocket full of dream…
I’ll increase my donation next year
Naturally, in the unlikely chance, I do win the $50K, I’ll make sure to mention your site….Very unlikely though as my team is falling apart…..
Impromptu
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Good for you Walsey – go at it large or go home mate. Your above post comes across very apologetic……and it really shouldn’t mate ~ its what happens when you pour all of your energy into something you love ~ and it works
Good luck mate, we are all in this with you….
Registered: CHECK
Newsletter: CHECK
Emails: CHECK
Competitions: CHECK
Donations: More to come…..
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Really appreciate the openness Walesy. Like Simonoz I do not think you should be apologetic in any way. You have created an amazing site and community, which I really appreciate.
I have no problem with a commercial approach and hope you (and Jo) cover the outgoings and prosper. If advertisers cannot sell alcohol and anti-depressants to footy supporters they shouldn’t be in business!
regards
chels
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Great stuff Walsey,
All ill say is to all those that love using TooSerious and make it your 2nd home please donate to keep this site running as freaking awesome as it is now. Im not sure how it can get any better but hell im excited. It doesnt matter if its only $5 that you donate, cos every little amount helps. If TooSerious/Walsey charged $5 to use this site, would you pay that tiny tiny amount to use TS? Im tipping 90% of the 2000+ members would…
So in short donate to keep this site going: http://tooserious.net/donate.php
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I just want to reiterate all the statements above. This is a fantastic site/community and it would be a real shame if it was not able to continue developing further.
All those people using this site please register and like I just did donate. It doesn’t have to be a lot. This is a much more worthwhile cause than SuperCoach Gold and plenty of people have forked out for that.
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Those who havent donated yet what are you waiting for?
Good luck Walsey!
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The popularity of our game has gone through the roof in the last 4-5 years – $1.2b TV rights is testimony to that.
I don’t think its a coincidence that this rise has occurred at the same time as fantasy football games have become so prominent.
Supporters don’t just watch their own team anymore – they want to see how players are going in their Fantasy Team too.
I have introduced a number of people to this site over the last 12 months – that now pay far greater attention to what is happening in the football world, because this site gives them great information – it gives them a chance to beat their mate.
Tooserious, along with a number of other DT/SC related sites (YSCC, FF, etc) should be receiving a portion of the TV rights as they promote the game as much as anyone else – call it a grant, call it whatever you want – but the AFL ultimately has an interest in seeing this and like-minded sites prosper, so they should be paying for it to an extent.
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Just donated and yes it does leave a great feeling inside helping out. This site has been great and very helpful. Goes to show how caring this community is when everyone is helping out each other.
I stumbled upon TooSerious and it has become one of the most looked at websites for me. Well done and thank you walesy.
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Thanks for the support guys!
Simonoz, appreciate the sentiment mate- I guess it’s a run on my anti-sell-out youth!
This community comes first, and I’d hate to give the impression that I’m just out to make a quick buck! (though after 5 years, I reckon it’s the slowest quick buck in history! 
)
Holey, I agree mate! online grass roots football- they should be all over supporting it!
And to everyone who’s donated, thank you all so much, I’m gunna start proccessing them shortly
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A truly great resource.
Like Walesy said at the start of the year, if SC gold is valued at $25 then whats this site worth!
I’m not concerned with a few adds floating around the site, whatever pays the bills i say.
Just donated and will do so again in the future.
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Consider it done. This is certainly a great site and the last thing anyone wants is for this to happen http://onthefool.com/
as it seems to have from a rival site. That would mean i’d probably have to do work during the day! By the way was that ‘the ben’? i saw someone called ben woods plugging the site on facebook a fair bit earlier in the year and havent noticed him on here for a while.
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I’ll admit that I was a Lurkey last year.
I ‘spose I just wandered in and around a bit, and didn’t really, know, or see the full potential of the site until this year.
So I registered early on, and have had alot of assistance since – not only from the write-ups but from the community as a whole.
I’ve been to a number of ‘Supercoach’ sites (inc. one that was short lived that folded part way through last year – SuperRoach – a great site that just couldn’t support the costs) and the community that has been built here is by far the greatest.
Alot of the other sites have guys that just want to flame you or pick crap out of your team and offer little or negative assistance.
I’m not a SC guru, but I hope that in time I can provide some assistance to others here, and become a valued member.
I’ll def be putting in a donation.
I take my hat off to you on being able to create, support, and manage this site…..
Keep up the fantastic work. Without this site I reckon I’d be an SC dud!
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I hope whoever wins the $50g, if they’ve used TooSerious, then they tip in a grand back to the place that made it easier for them.
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@walesy
Dunno how connected you are with the HUN but I know you have done a few articles with them in the past. I wonder if you could do a ‘piece’ for them regarding tactics for people concentrating on winning their league (about 200,000 people) Now would be the perfect time as your league is ranked number 1. Which would be a subtle way to name drop your site. The traffic they must be pulling would be crazy.
Also you could have an angle that registration for tooserious is free in 2011 but next year their maybe a fee, so get in fast now and avoid the fee?
This site is so good now, I couldn’t imagine how good it would be if you were full time!
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I just donated too Walesy, couldn’t imagine life without tooserious! Thanks for the great rescources and insights.
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Can anyone confirm or deny if the current leader Garry who is THE Ben?
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Just added my support as well via the donation page. Love the work from the TS team. Very much appreciated.
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Firstly, I think it’s sad when the “onthefool” sites go by the wayside. Tragic really, when they are serving a legitimate outlet for the bloggers.
Secondly, when a site gets 1.5 million hits a month, even if most of them are from me refreshing my screen (LOL), then it’s got to be doing something right!
I know advertisers want to see locked in members though, to “prove” a community. We are so close to doing just that.
Another thing you might need to know, the posters here do the job gratis, so all your hard earned goes to the servers, then to the kids, then to Walesy’s 8 monopoly houses.
I think it would be great if the newsletter got the cred that FantasyFreako and Dr DreamTeam gets. The more who sign up to this, the better.
We’ve also been trying to pitch this site to AFL Club media managers for Rising Star interviews. It’s been unsuccessful but we keep trying to get the best content here. I reckon we’d be almost certain to get a Collingwood player featured here due to their social media presence, but most other teams have been quite closed down. So let’s hope Fasolo gets a game soon!
And now for the dreamers…
The other thing I would love to do is take on the best and create a fantasy game that challenges and tests. Where you don’t feel that the past mistakes of the previous 10 weeks render you ineligible to participate in the competition!
I’ve played a fair few dating back to the old “The Age Newspaper cutouts”, and people here have played so many, and I had a lot of fun chatting with Walesy different ideas in terms of trading, valuations, all that.
This community of footy nuts could create the next Supercoach, and enjoy the benefits of being involved in such an enjoyable endeavour.
But yeah, unless we keep a site like this up and running, even thinking of creating something like that is a total pipedream.
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On “The Ben” I have to reckon no chance the current leader is.
Because if it were me, I’d come back here and rub it in our faces! LOL
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As I said earlier this year – you’ve got a choice between donating money here to a real tangible and wonderful COMMUNITY site driven by knowledgeable people and looked after by Walesy.
Or you can buy SC Gold.
This site is about community. About interaction. Generosity of time and knowledge. These are the things that make this place work.
But it only works if the support is two ways – and, from our end, the most tangible support can come through donations and continued patronage of the site.
Or, again, you could purchase SC Gold and line Rupert’s pockets.
A no-brainer for me, really.
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Those darn kids!
Definitely have a lot of love for the writers in this place- particularly Lucas who’s been an absolute rock- You guys have been an integral part of this community and I can’t wait for the day that we can start to repay you for all that you’ve done!!
Also, yeah- no way Ben wouldn’t be mentioning it if he were on top.
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True Lucas, Bens biggest fan was…well Ben. Shortly followed by me.
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I liked him
I liked giving a serve after Collingwood wins too
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Been flat out busy this year.
But will definitely shoot off a donation your way shortly.
Fantastic site that I have been using for years and the expertise is second to none.
Also, Walesy is a champ.
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hey walsey long time “lurker” and just signed up and ticked all the boxs. id love to donate but with a new arrival due in a month every dollar is counting atm, i hope i can contribute at some stage in the future as it will be money well spent. ive found your site to be full of great articles and always check the b/e s before doing any trades and it seems like a good community you have here. best of luck with the site and keep up the good work. cheers
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No probs mate, congrats on the little one! Those buggers are giant timesinks, but completely worth it.
As for supporting, signing up and clicking the boxes is a fantastic way to go! Other things you can do is to spread the word, click through to our sponsors- and even sign up there is the mood takes you- it all adds up in little ways!
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Everyone should donate, think about how much bragging rights are worth to you! Beating my mates is worth plenty more than I donated.
Another option Walesy is to get a job in the public sector, you could get paid well and work on the site all day….
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Everyone using this site should definitely make any contribution they can. Whether it has helped to improve your overall ranking, snatch a work league victory over the office jerk, offer an understanding sanctuary to vent your frustrations when people in the real world don’t get why its such a big deal that Heath Shaw got tagged out of the game or just help pass a few hours at work. We all receive some level of benefit from walesys hard work and I reckon he deserves some of our hard earned for it.
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As for Ben I thought he was great value, apparently Dane Swan thinks he is overrated though…
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Hahaha! Love it fryzie…
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Pity you’re not beating any of your mates Hendy!
I’ve lurked this site for some years now but never got around to signing up, will send over a few dollars on pay day
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You’re a gun Walesy…I’m in the top 600 for the first time due to this very site…I was ranked around 40k after round 2 so the improvement is there for all to see. Within reach of the top 100…now that would be bragging rights! Donation on the way! I think all the info here helps my multis each week too…had two collects in the last 3 weeks! :-)
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fryzie it must be soon – the fwd tag on Heater that is.
How will he handle it this year? hmm
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I decided at the start of the season to donate 10% of any winnings to TS – I wouldn’t have won anything with this site, and I’d say the same goes for most of us. I am in a ‘paid’ league with work mates, and sitting at 170 overall, I’d like to think I’m still in with a chance at the overall with some good trades.
Keep up the good work Walesy, and you’ll some some coin from me just as soon as i get home!
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Although I only come across this site just before the season started, it has become a 2nd home to me – whenever I am online I am on here checking posts, researching players B/E’s etc – I have found the community to be a wealth of info and very welcoming.
At present my budget doesn’t have any leeway to make a donation, but by the end of June I will be able to free up a little bit to help out – and when I finally get my payout from the SA police for a wrongful arrest and unlawful detention claim I am fighting, I should be able to fire of a nice little sum to help out further.
Keep up the great work Walesy – I know there’s alot of us out here right behind you
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should read “wouldn’t have won anything WITHOUT this sute”…
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i give up.
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Go for it walesy!
As you know I was a newby this year & fired off more than a few emails asking how to do this or how to use this (to scared to put em on forum). Yourself & Jo were always patient & responsded with terrific support.
This place does feel like a 2nd home & as already mentioned heaps, ppl are happy to share & care + give constructive advice. We can also have a bit of fun with the odd jibe although I am dissapointed that lucas didn’t recieve more after the pies lost :-)
Not knowing all the sites features or how to make my computer thumbs use them early on, I also subscribed to SC Gold.
NO MORE! The $25 will be added to my existing donation next year & I hope the site can continue to grow & get my rankings into the top 100 (need a year or two as currently ranked 18,417 lol but hey i’m in the top 5% which is a big improvement on last yr).
The reviews & writings of walesy, Jo, Lucas, Holey, Jasmine & others are also great & we have the ability to interact!
I can enjoy the Donors Team (will democracy work?) & the TS Legends DT league is sitting 13th. Also congrates to our SC No 1 league. All this makes a fantastic site that I want to see viable for years to come.
PS walesy will pay a little extra again if it means I don’t have to cross paths with that Green Jelly Bean Machine next year! :-))
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@Shenanigans – the curse of the TS non-edit feature strikes again – lmao
regards
chels
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comment editing – maybe another thing you can offer donors, Walesy?!
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But I can edit *my* comments!
I’ll definitely add it to the list guys!
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Registered: CHECK
Newsletter: CHECK
Emails: CHECK
Competitions: CHECK
Sponsorship: New competition nearly ready.
@sheningans – Living up to your name dude. Too bloody funny.
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The donors should get their own board and forum… oh hang on we already do!
Forgot thats where all the serious talk and banter happens! 
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Just donated Walsey!
Thanks for all of your hard work !!
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I’ve been visiting here for over a year, and occasionally contributing. I made a donation earlier this year, because I feel this is a damn interesting and useful site, and Walesy is passionate, courteous, and a genuinely good bloke.
Don’t ever feel apologetic about asking for remuneration for all your hard work Walesy. I’ll be doubling my donation , and won’t expect anything extra in return. I already feel I get more than enough reading the contributions of the regulars here. Cheers.
( Special shout out to Lucas, for reminding me of the good old Age newspaper cutout fantasy footy. How the hell did we do it without computers? And all kicks , handballs, marks and tap outs were worth 1 point. No such thing as tackles or clangers either. Simple times….)
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Yes, edit function will be great as I meant:
“pocket full of dream(s)”
I finished as follows:
Post-2009 – 188, 786
Pre-2009 – Top 50,000
My overall rankings improved the same time I joined TooSerious (direct correlation?)
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I hope my last post didn’t appear as though I was bragging about my overall rankings. I was actually trying to give credit to TooSerious for my improvements.
Donate what you everyone.
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We are happy you are fighting in the top 10 at the moment, Impromptu.
With the top league in the business and heaps of top 50 candidates, it makes the rest of us feel like discussion is worthwhile as it could lead to the overall win for someone here.
That, and, of course, the need for each of us to win our individual leagues.
I’d love a 5/5 record this season but three of the leagues are mighty competitive, and the other two have some real dangerous lurkers who are biding their time with trades in hand.
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hi guys, long time lurker first ever post.
just donated; no way we can let the site go down.
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