I am very excited to announce today's launch of a new historical society dedicated to the Delaware and Hudson Railway.

https://www.delawarehudson.org/

The most exciting thing about it, for me, is that it follows the ideas put forth in my hobby publishing white paper: http://hobbypublishing.edkapuscinski.com/

Membership is all managed via Patreon, and the "magazine" is a set of feature articles on the archive site: https://archives.delawarehudson.org/champlain-shield

The other primary member benefit is access to the organization's archives. They're always growing, but we're starting with an amazing collection of right of way maps.

https://archives.delawarehudson.org/col ... t-way-maps

As mentioned elsewhere, we've also preserved an RS-3, but for the assembled minds here, I think the biggest takeaway is the idea of a historical society built "digital first" from the ground up.

I am thrilled to see a new group pop up with some real modern ways of thinking to attract the younger crowd. Discord is a huge deal now with young guys in the hobby.

I am not a huge D&H fan by any means, but it took me 3 clicks to join.

This could be a real model for future, "new" organizations. I look forward to seeing where this goes. Knowing the people involved, I think it will be a fantastic success.

Just spent a little time renewing my memberships this morning and thought I would join the Society and try it out.

I'm not a member of Patreon and while I don't have a problem with Patreon per se (except I'd rather see 100% of the money go right to the group without fees), but of all the societies I'm a member of (railroad and not), they give you options for payment. It's Patreon only for the D&H group. I'll continue to think about it but this is putting me off for now.

Any other Patreon exclusive groups out there? If so, advantages/disadvantages?

Joshua

As the architect of this approach I'd love to understand more about your feelings and perspectives on Patreon.

It works for us because it's an integrated membership management solution that integrates easily with other digital platforms.

While they do take a cut it's not unlike the other services that societies use for this stuff like PayPal, cc processors and White River (who manages the memberships for MANY groups).

If you have other concerns I'd like to understand them.