I Could Use Your Help

I could use your help.  I have thought long and hard about this and have been on the fence because it feels kind of arrogant to do this, but...

I need to increase the number of lessons I am able to take.  In the past few months I have managed only four hours of working with a coach.  My wife and I are saving for a house and so I just don't have much disposable income for chess right now.  I do have enough materials (I have 125 or so books and 10-12 DVD's plus I am the librarian for my club so I have the 300 or so club books and 30 or so club DVD's at my house) and I can come up with what I need for entry fees.

The one thing that I can't do is to afford lessons right now.

So I am asking for help from my readers.  If you can spare even just a dollar or two and think that my goal is a worthy one then I would appreciate your help.

blogger.com has an option to monetize blogs via ads.  I thought about that because I do draw OK traffic.  Especially seeing as how I'm less than three months into this project.  BUT...I don't want to do that.  I don't want to clutter up my blog with ridiculous ads.  I like the believe that many readers here enjoy what they are reading and get something out of it.

Whether that something is inspiration to study; good practical advice as to how to improve at chess; or even just amusement I don't want to be "that guy" who makes the posts hard to read because you're getting slammed with ads over every  inch of space.

So after thinking about it a long time I have decided to ask for help.  If I get it, mission accomplished.  If I don't, then no harm is asking.  Hopefully no one will stop reading as a result...

Right now the coach I am working with is only $25 an hour.  So in this case a little bit goes a long way.  I don't need to raise hundreds of dollars to get only an hour or two of lessons in return.  If I could raise even just $100 in a month that would be plenty.

So here is my pledge to you...I promise that any and all monies raised from my readers will go towards lessons.  I will continue to pay all of my other chess related expenses out of my own pocket as I do now.

Of course I will also blog relentlessly about how the lessons are going, etc.