Effective Spirits

I’m gearing up for March’s Ancestor Service, which will be held on Wednesday, March 6 (so we’re a little over two weeks away). The Effective Spirits website has been updated this evening in two places, to reflect a change in how I am ensuring the Ancestor Service continues to have adequate financial support, and also to offer a new ancestor-related service to participants.

For the first service (December 31/January 1) I had a “pay what you like” donation model which resulted in a significant surplus/overage I was able to use to purchase nicer offerings and support a good number of people who wished to participate but couldn’t donate. This way, those who donated covered the cost of the candles and offerings for those who could not.

When I set up this website before the February service, I coded it with an arbitrary “donation pricing” model offering a suggested parameter for how much to donate for what kind of candle, instead of leaving it with the pay what you like model. As a result, and also because I have underestimated how much candles are costing (yikes!), I did not have much left once eveything was paid for in order to support those who needed a donation to cover them and also to be able to donate extra money in your names (see the Facebook group for a link to February’s beneficiaries: two families in need of funeral/burial cost assistance).

In order to avoid this happening again in March, as I am currently between jobs and my ability to cover costs is limited, I went into the website and set the suggested donations slightly higher (now $5, $7, and $11 respectively instead of $2, $5, and $7) for one time donations, going forward. One time donators can customize an amount over $7 if they choose but it is not required, and I need to reiterate that NO ONE is required to pay anything for this – I will find a way with whatever I receive. I did not raise the price for the annual subscriptions, because I believe that if someone is supporting me in doing this for the whole year they deserve a discount. But I wanted to be transparent about why the prices are now slightly higher. If anyone has already set up a monthly payment, the amount you chose is locked in and will not change. This only makes a suggested change for new donations from today on, and again, no one has to donate if they don’t want to or they can’t and no one will be turned away from participating.

In other news, there is an update on the Services page. My great uncle George was a genealogist in his post-retirement life, and he taught me how to use the services available (for a high subscription cost alas) via ancestry.com to trace family histories. When he walked on he left me all his notes as well as his subscription, and I maintain it in his honor and use it to help clients researching ancestors or trying to build family trees. I am happy to offer genealogy research services to anyone. Let’s talk!

Thank you all for continuing to support and participate in the Ancestor Service. I am really excited to continue this process and believe it is having very positive results for all of us living and dead.