Category: WP-ORG

FD53 starts today – please consider donating to support WP-ORG

WP-ORG Members:

Today marks the launch of our 53rd semi-annual fund drive (FD53) with a goal of $50,252 to fund the operation of West-Point.ORG (WP-ORG) for the next six months. You are receiving this message since you are on at least one email list hosted by WP-ORG. Our services are free to all users, supported by donations via a voluntary fund drive every six months.

You may donate online at https://www.west-point.org/donate/ and choose the form you’d like to use – debit/credit card, PayPal, check, or stock donations. We strive to be transparent with our budget needs. For the next six months, we anticipate needing $50,252 – see https://www.west-point.org/budget/ for details.

We’re in our 27th year of this PBS-style fundraising approach and know that these “votes of confidence” with your donations twice each year keep us actively listening to your ideas and needs. If we provide value to the grads, parents, cadets, and friends of West Point by helping to keep them connected through classes, societies, clubs, and other organizations, then we will generate enough goodwill and donations to keep it going…and that has worked wonderfully for over 27 years! Personally, it has certainly been a privilege to be a part of WP-ORG for 27 years and I have gained so much from connecting with other grads across the many decades of the Long Gray Line. With your support, we will continue to do so.

We consider it a privilege to help this community stay connected and sincerely appreciate your support!

Sincerely,
Warren Hearnes ’89
for WP-ORG Advisors

WP-ORG: WP-ORG Answers The Call

It’s fundraising time at WP-ORG. Please consider making a donation: https://www.west-point.org/donate

By now you’re very aware that we’re a different entity from the AOG, but with a similar mission to serve graduates. Our goal is to make everything we do easier, smoother, flexible and cost effective. As Megan Klein said last week, “we are enthusiastic and scrappy; we love to help and we have an army of volunteers”.

WP-ORG is of different value to different people – all depending on how you use the services it provides. I know that for the USMA Class of 1968, the services offered provide us a lifeline to the Class. The Class of 1968 relies on WP-ORG for our listservs, our Class website, our registration / credit card sites and anything else we need.

This past June, many members of the Class joined together for a very memorable and moving Remembrance Weekend, honoring the twenty classmates they lost in Vietnam. Family members of most of the fallen classmates joined in the weekend’s events in DC. All the logistical communications and registration were done through WP-ORG.

The Class is gearing up for their 55th reunion next May – and guess who will be building and maintaining our registration sites? WP-ORG. That’s pre-registration, registration, and a special site to pre-order the fourth book in the “Both Sides of The Wall” series – this one geared to the memories shared by the wives – appropriately called “The Other Side of the Wall”.

WP-ORG has always taken a “can do” attitude – and delivers on it. Several years ago, against Dutch’s strong urging, I came up with 68 different memorabilia items to offer at the reunion (with various color choices and size options, so actually significantly more than 68 items). While I’m sure that Megan Klein and Warren Hearnes chuckled at the absurdity, they nonetheless built a registration / memorabilia order site that handled all the variables – in a clear and clean format and in record time. After having to sort / pack all the “stuff” in each classmate’s reunion bag, I saw the wisdom of Dutch’ counsel – but from an organizational standpoint, there was not a word said – it was “can do”.

We also appreciate the fact that I can administer the Class listservs, so when a member of the Class switches his email address and forgets to tell me, the ‘bounce’ does the trick and we’re able to reach out and get reconnected. Similarly, when I am informed of a new email address, it’s a quick zip into the admin files and “out with the old, in with the new”. Some members of the Class have a west-point.org email account, which is of course free and available to all grads, and the beauty of that is that the email address doesn’t change, no matter how many personal or professional moves the grad has over time.

I recently sent in the Howitzer pictures of all members of the Class – so now, when a member of the Class dies, Dian will be able to include their picture on their eulogy page and of course, is willing to take whatever other pictures the Class or family wish to submit. Remembrances on the eulogy pages are living memorials – viewed often, new messages often added many years later – classmates are truly never forgotten.

The services are all offered for free – except for the credit card sites, where we do charge a modest 5% to cover the processing and administrative fees.

WP-ORG is a “people” organization. If I have a question or problem, the answer is an email or phone call away – immediate attention to all. Charitable, tax deductible giving keeps us up and running. Hopefully, with your help the services provided by WP-ORG will continue for many years to come – ever evolving – ever expanding – ever improving.

Donate by credit card, PayPal or check: https://www.west-point.org/donate/

Fund Drive 52 Budget: https://www.west-point.org/budget/

Donation report for Fund Drive 52: https://secure.west-point.org/donate/report/

Thank you, always, for your support!
Megan Hostler
WP-ORG

WP-ORG: How Far We Have Come!

It’s fundraising time at WP-ORG. Please consider making a donation: https://www.west-point.org/donate

As I look back at the 26 years of WP-ORG, I can’t help but smile at how far we’ve come and how much we’ve overcome. WP-ORG has grown from a desk, to bedroom, to a DIY server room, to a co-location facility and now, partially, to a cloud. We used to blink out occasionally when the T1 line would go down, or when a storm would take out a nearby power transformer. We had AC units freeze up and once water came pouring in through the ceiling during a torrential Texas rainstorm. We’ve repaired servers with duct tape. We’ve cannibalized one server to keep another online. We’ve moved WP-ORG in pickup trucks. We’ve thought, a time or two, that WP-ORG was finished – that we’d never be able to bring it back online – but then we did. For years now, in the co-location facility, things have been far more stable. It’s fun to look back at the old days and wonder how the hell we did it. Some of you have been here for the whole ride. We’ve been grateful for your company.

WP-ORG is definitely not the West Point Association of Graduates. For starters, we have only two employees and our budget for the next six months is $51,670.00. But we are enthusiastic and scrappy; we love to help and we have an army of volunteers. 

WP-ORG is a 501(c)3. It’s based in Texas, where it was founded in 1996 by a handful of graduates who saw the potential of the internet to bring the Long Gray Line together as never before. They worked tirelessly to build WP-ORG, giving it a mission to foster the connection of graduates online and to support classes, societies and parent clubs across the country with web-based tools. 

In pursuit of this mission, WP-ORG believes in freedom, autonomy and privacy. 

WP-ORG provided services are controlled and managed by their users, allowing classes, societies and parent clubs to determine how to use these tools to best support their organizations. 

WP-ORG does not data-mine anything. WP-ORG does not sell user information. WP-ORG servers are controlled by West Point graduates. 

WP-ORG exists to give graduates and parents a choice in private online communication, event registration and payment, personalized eulogy sites, email accounts for graduates, and free web space for West Point affiliated organizations. WP-ORG is home to the Ring Recovery Project and a graduate living history project in the form of WP-ORG’s Ward Book.

Though the leadership of WP-ORG has changed through the years, the mission has been unwavering and the organization remains accountable. Every six months, in semi-annual fund drives, we ask our users if the services provided are useful, relevant and needed. For 51 fund drives, the answer has been a resounding yes! 

If you value the services WP-ORG provides, please donate so that we may continue to serve the Long Gray Line.

Donate by credit card, PayPal or check: https://www.west-point.org/donate/

Fund Drive 52 Budget: https://www.west-point.org/budget/

Donation report for Fund Drive 52: https://secure.west-point.org/donate/report/

Thank you, always, for your support!

Megan Klein

WP-ORG INC

WP-ORG Fall Fund Drive Starts Today!

Fellow graduates and friends of West Point,

It is October again and time for WP-ORG’s semi-annual fund drive. Please donate. Your financial support will keep the wheels turning at WP-ORG.

https://www.west-point.org/donate/

In return, WP-ORG will help keep our graduate community strong, connected and communicating with each other. As I grow older, I am reminded of the importance of the groups that I belong to. Those groups bring meaning to my life and help define who I am. My friends from West Point are some of my favorites 😊 and really the only ones that have consistently been a part of my life over the last 30 years.

Here in Orange Beach, AL, it is also time to celebrate freedom. My community has come together to host a “Freedom Fest” weekend filled with celebration, music and speakers for the sole purpose of celebrating the freedom that we all enjoy here in Orange Beach, in Alabama, and in the United States of America. I am proud to live in a place that truly values the sacrifices made by so many throughout the history of our great country. Over the years, as my children have grown older, I have attended many memorial day gatherings and veteran’s day celebrations at the elementary, middle and high school level. I am always surprised by how touched I am at the outpouring of love for our military and how connected our community is to its veterans. I feel like this happens in pockets all across America, but I am super proud that it happens where I live.

In today’s polarized world, I love that I can depend on my West Point friends and family for rational, thoughtful, respectful dialogue on so many topics. Many of these discussions happen across WP-ORG’s servers.

Please donate today.

Thanks!
Cameron Price (USMA 1996)