Donations

Okay, not specifically a tip about investigating, just a thought about fundraising: (at this point it probably doesn't make much of a difference, but in the future, it may.) People tend to be more giving if they have a specific goal in mind - it may help to add to your donation page something like: "These funds are going to the purchace of a digital thermometer." (Or whatever missing equipment you need.) Then when you have the new equipment add a (Non-specific) "thank you" to those who made the purchase possible. It doesn't seem like much, but it really can make a difference.

That's a good suggestion. I'll have to keep that in mind. At this point, I'm not exactly sure what I'd like us to save for next. Any suggestions?

w1ngs0fate wrote:That's a good suggestion. I'll have to keep that in mind. At this point, I'm not exactly sure what I'd like us to save for next. Any suggestions?

I don't know what you have, but here's my teams purchace plan: We require that every team member have a Camera and Voice Recorder of thier own so our first 'team' equipment that we are working on are hand-held infrared video cameras (2) Stationary infrared video cameras (2) and a dedicated laptop for investigations, probably in that order (We are using our own computers now, but at the very least we will need to ante up for an external hard drive, soon.)

Okay, thanks. We need the infrared cameras as well, so probably will want to save for those for the future.

DVR with IR cameras a must!!!! Plus plenty of cable!

I'm not sure how many people really donate. We have all members pay $40 initial membership fee and $10 a month in dues. This pays for general equipment and what not. It's not a bad deal really. If you think about the initial investiment in personal investigation equipment it can be pretty pricey. How ever for $10 a month you have access to group equipment i.e. infrared cameras, DVR's, EMF detectors, IR thermometers etc.

One key thing to keep an eye on is if a person owns a key peice of equipment i.e. a DVR. Say for some reason they get a bug in thier but and leave your whole group suffers. If you can it may be a good idea to have key pieces be group owned.

Ebay is another great fundraising tool! If your team really can't pay for expensive pieces if equipment ask them is they have anything around the house they can sell. It's win win. Members get to remove clutter and the group benefits! These are just some ideas that have worked for us.

I'm so not knowledgeable when it comes to this tech stuff but I'm trying! DVR stands for digital video recorder. Yes? What's the difference between that and an IR camera? If I were to buy stationary infrared cameras and set them up throughout the location we are investigating, I can view live what it's recording from my laptop then, right? I would love to have something like that so then we'll be able to set up a "home base" of sorts for when we do each of our investigations. Also, this is necessary for when we do investigations for clients, either in their homes or places of business, so that they can watch everything from home base.

Maybe once our team gets fairly large, I will make an initial fee that will go toward team equipment. If we get to that point where everyone is willing to donate to help purchase different pieces of equipment for the team, then I will be a happy founder.

The DVR is like a digital VCR. It can hold hours of video from multiple cameras. I know some one on here mentioned turning a computer into a DVR. This works pretty well to but takes up alot of memory.

I tell ya' I am so close to going out and mowing lawns this summer for extra funding!

Ahh, I see. What other ways can you use DVRs besides using the computer? Thanks for the help, Donn!

lol Aw wow.

You don't have to use a computer for a DVR. Here's how it breaks down. The cameras are set all over the house. Each camera is connected to the DVR which can record between 4 and 12 cameras at the same time depending on the unit. In order to see what your recording you would need a moniter. Now there are conversion kits that can turn a computer into a DVR and I have heard some pretty good things about these.

I think that's what you may have been asking. I've only had one cup of coffee so I'm still waking up.

Before we had our DVR we had a stack of VCR's that recored everything but that kinda turned into a pain in the but. You can get a good DVR for a little over $200 and some decent IR cameras for $30. Some times you can find a pretty good deal on all of it from ebay.

ebay....a paranormal investigators best friend!

Donn_DPS wrote:You don't have to use a computer for a DVR. Here's how it breaks down. The cameras are set all over the house. Each camera is connected to the DVR which can record between 4 and 12 cameras at the same time depending on the unit. In order to see what your recording you would need a moniter. Now there are conversion kits that can turn a computer into a DVR and I have heard some pretty good things about these.

I think that's what you may have been asking. I've only had one cup of coffee so I'm still waking up.

Before we had our DVR we had a stack of VCR's that recored everything but that kinda turned into a pain in the but. You can get a good DVR for a little over $200 and some decent IR cameras for $30. Some times you can find a pretty good deal on all of it from ebay.

ebay....a paranormal investigators best friend!

See, this is why I lurk around these boards - we kinda had the Laptop w/ Media Center stuck in our heads when we were building an equipment plan. (This is what I had been exposed to in the past, so we just sorta decided to go with it.) But I see that it seems much less of a hassle/expense to go with a DVR - the computer worked great, but memory was a definite issue.

Also, agree about ebay, we are planning on ordering our stationary I.R.'s later this week.

Ahh, I understand now. Thanks! I'd probably like to get a conversion kit then so I can watch what is being recorded on my computer. That sounds good to me. Are those pretty expensive, do you know?

Yeah, I'll definitely have to check around eBay!

Well as soon as I am able to find a DVR and 4 camera's we will be able to use that I also have a camcorder with a light that will help. Could use a thermo-cam and a few mini-DV's. I will look on ebay. We should be able to get pretty cheap. I have a EMF gauge coming already.

You know we might get lucky on craigs list too. I know alot of people who look for barters on there. I'll take a look and see whats on there. You never know we might get lucky.

www.craigslist.org
If anyone else wants to take a peek.

not a bad idea.

might not be a bad idea to post a classified in a newspaper. Once we get the team setup might bring some people out.

Right on! I posted a blog on my myspace page about the group and I'm hoping it will bring some people in if not some plublicity. I have an old friend I'm talking to now who might be interested and she's a cop for cicero and I know a few places there we could check out.

Scott, you are amazing! Thank you so much!! A thermal camera though might be a tad bit hard to get our hands on though... XD They range from about $7,000 (if you get lucky) to over $30,000! Trust me, I wanted one of those too! I think they'd be fun to play with, even if you don't catch any evidence.

We are in desperate need of some stationary infrared cameras and a DVR converter. I'm really not sure what to do about that though, since both Tony and I are completely BROKE. And will be for years to come. Eeep. Stupid bills.

I actually did post our website though on Craig's List. So we have that going for us!

I was on the TAPs forums (not Sci-Fi's Ghost Hunters) in their serious investigators section (a really good place to get lots of useful advice from other paranormal teams), and someone suggested a newspaper ad. However, others said that you can get a lot of weird people calling you and that it's really not a good method to get some traffic. I'm not sure yet.

I do however have a Mac program called iWork which has Pages, which allows you to create lots of different things, including flyers. So I made a couple of those already. I posted only one so far though, which is in our apartment. I wasn't sure if I should post any more up yet, afraid that someone might want us to come and investigate their house/business, and since we don't have a full working team yet, that would be getting a little ahead of ourselves.

Which actually leads me to this little friendly reminder! Check out the thread entitled GHoST Team Meet and Greet in the General Team Discussion area if you are a team member or soon to become one!

there may be even a better option we can become a TAPS branch. i am sure they get calls all the time but can't investigate everything might be an option to consider.

You mean part of the TAPs family? These are the requirements to become a TAPs family member, according to the TAPs official website:


1. Your team must have a minimum of one year of service in the community. This must be verifiable.
2. Your team must have a web presence and must represent themselves on an add-free service. We shy away from freebie web hosting sites.
3. You must provide two (2) references at a minimum from your local community. This ensures to us that you've been active in a positive light.
4. The Founder of your group must be at least 21 years of age and have a clean criminal background.
5. Your group must offer all services for free and while your policy may include accepting donations, you may not state that you ASK for them.
6. Your group must be in an area where we need coverage. Please see the coverage map here.
7. You understand that if your group is rejected at the current time, you may not reapply for at least 12 months.

And here is their coverage map


Seems like they already have a team around here?

The map is incorrect. The team is actually much further south in central Illinois.

Oh really? Do you know that team, Donn? Well, that's kind of cool then. However, if DPS wanted to become part of the TAPs family, then I wouldn't want to compete against you in the future.

Yeah, the team is Troy Taylors group. We don't like them very much. He mixes investigations with his other tours and book sales. Also you can fork over some money and join his "ghost society". Last I checked there was no way to contact him for an investigation but at least 13 ways to buy his books, tours and payment methods if you wanted to join his group.

I mentioned this to the TAPS family manager. He was pretty upset by it and said he would bring it up to Jason and Grant. Nothing has happened yet and I doubt it will.

We may try and go for the TAPS family status but to be honest we're not that interested in it.

OHHH!! ha, So that was the guy you were telling me about before. Sheesh...

Ah, yeah, I understand. It may or may not ever happen with us.

Well so far about the only requirement we dont meet is the one about being together for a year. I think the general feeling in our group is that the taps family requirements are a little to easy to obtain, so they let in some groups that we're not sure should be in. So in order to distance ourselves from those groups, we would have to keep ourselves from the taps family. Besides what difference does it make if your in the taps family, i dont really see any benefit from it other than publicity, and you can get that by doing great work of your own!!!

Good point, Kevin. Either way, your group has to make a name for itself somehow, and I'd prefer ours to be respectable rather than looked down upon and unprofessional.