Announcements: Annual Memberships and Shining, Happy Places

Posted Dec 04, 2020 3:42PM EST

Holy Cow, it's been forty days since I checked in with you! As a step toward amends, I'd like to share the following message I posted to our Patreon subscribers.

But first, to clarify what's been going on and why I've been out of sight: My partner Al started having medical issues in August. Tests showed he'd had three strokes and needed surgery to prevent more, possibly fatal ones. He quit smoking, was cleared for surgery, and finally went under the knife on November 11th. He came home for a weekend... and went back to the hospital for a week because he'd had another stroke in the process. 🙃

He's been home ever since, but he's needed a lot of immediate hands-on care, as any lover of older men will eventually attest. I'm the only programmer on the site, so I hope you'll understand why there have been no great leaps forward of late.

Still, our membership has grown and the site has improved and the conversations have blossomed and I hope you've continued to enjoy all that we offer. In the meantime:

Message to Patreon (and now everyone):

Someone just asked whether he could pay in advance for a year's membership in OlderGay.Men. I checked with Patreon and... it was quite easy to set up!

So, that's an option now, and you'll receive a 10% discount if you know you'd like to support us for a full year. Patreon’s page on annual memberships includes instructions on how to upgrade from a monthly subscription:

https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042152671-I-paid-a-creator-for-a-year-what-can-I-expect#h_bb4c524e-40d0-43bc-a2ae-cdf3589638c0

If you’d like to review the nitty-gritty of how annual memberships work before committing, you can read their article for us “Creators”, which gives the tedious details:

https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041721372

Let us know if you need any help. Monthly or yearly or eternally, we’re grateful to all of you who keep us going.

And a personal update before I go:

It’s been another week of me doing the necessary minimum on the site. My partner’s needed a lot of attention since his stroke. When I’m not driving him to an appointment or letting a therapist into the house, I'm listening to him on the baby monitor and waiting for the “Hey, Jeff!” that marks the end of whatever I had planned. We were in the car at 5:00 this morning to take him to the emergency room to have a catheter re-inserted because it came out yesterday and, nearly a day later, he was just not going on his own. So, I'll continue to indulge your patience with our grand todo list. For now, there aren’t enough uninterrupted hours in the day.

But on the bright side!:

Our other devoted staff members have pressed on and have reached a great milestone. All of our 333 places are now illuminated by the best photos we could find for them:

https://oldergay.men/places

The listings are scheduled for review once a year, so we’ll try to keep them up-to-date with the best insights of what to expect so you can reliably say, “Hey, I should check that out!” or “Oh... Okay... Not My Scene.”

I hope their hard work helps with your eventual travel plans and that you’re managing the best you can through this odd holiday season.

Be well and stay safe,
Jeff