jafar said

We may be able to host them on this site.  Are you able to make PDFs?  We still details to work through with how to wrap things up.  I'm hoping that we can share the digital copies of Pome new publicly.  The purpose of HOS is education, so would be nice to share them as a legacy.  

Jafar, yes, I can make pdfs.  There is some stuff on the newsletter that might not be useful - events calendar and maybe some other stuff.  I can leave that off.  I think my scanner has a low resolution mode that would be lower memory and still allow for reading on computer or tablet.  I will see if I can get to them tomorow, and also my scanner to see if it is still working.  Some tech has a way of becoming obsolete without telling us, so I need to check on that before I get in too deep   My main concern is if there is possible copyright infringement.  I don't want to risk that.  If I can get it to work, I can post a sample on the forum.

Edit:  I haven't looked at that box in probably a year.  Before I promise anything I need to see if I can find it.  Kind of embarrassing but when you live in a house this long, things sometimes hide. 

On OCR, that's way over my head.  Might be the perfect solution, but it's not something that I know.

The referee software for OCR is Omnipage. The standard version would do a bangup job once you get them scanned.

https://www.kofax.com/Products/omnipage/standard

My experience with Omnipage and OCR generally is that the higher the resolution image the more accurate the OCR transcription so keep that in mind as you set up your workflow. You can't have too high a resolution but you can have too low. Cameras are now much higher resolution than scanners. If you are careful, handheld 8 megapixel or greater cellphone photos work better than a scanner.

Tiff is best, PNG next best, JPG least best but acceptable if the resolution is high enough.                                   

Very sad. This forum offers diverse data on unusual cultivars from some very educated and interesting people. Having been a President of the local amateur winemaking club for 3 years, I understand how difficult this can be. We had a membership crisis and eventually came out of it. My thoughts are rather then just redesigning the website, maybe this is an opportunity to reconceptualize the organization. Below I have some thoughts which I am sure have already been thought of from time to time, but I'm kinda of an idea person and I never shy from expressing my opinion. If I am an ass or redundant, you can slap me silly. 

1) I never saw goals for membership or money on this site. I might have missed this because I log on maybe once a month. I am also very dense, or like many people I am having some money/health issues at this time. If money and membership are needed for the group, putting this information on the front page via thermometer (For example) are easy ways to communicate this information. Also, I have never met anyone from the HOS even though I went to the fall fruit fair. And at the fall fruit fair I also never got a sense of the organization's status. 

2) In the wine club we have monthly meetings where we did a variety of fun and educational things (tasting wine and speakers) and socialized. Obviously with Covid that changes everything. However, the advent of Zoom has changed everything. Not only can any number of people be there for a meeting for lecture, you can also bring in national speakers for informative information. You can even have time to socialize online. It's very cheap. There potentially could be four in person meetings which growing fruit really cannot do because of it's non-local nature. Athe Portland Winemakers Club we recently changed our meetings from a winery (which was free due to a special sponsor) to The Grange, which does cost money. But we raised our dues to make it work. Make it more then informative; Make it fun and a social organization where anyone can join and participate.

3) Are there any links to other organizations which might attract members and potentially help offset cost in exchange for advertising on the website like The Hardy Plant Society, One Green World, Portland Nursery, and the Portland Fruit Tree Project?

4) Is there potential to look for future sponsorship and money from agriculture organizations and municipal organizations. As the organization develops into a consistent Zoom oriented model, people would become more involved.

5) Make the website a resource for information, so people "hit" the website constantly. That also helps with potential advertising for sponsors.

6) Does this means no fruit or scion fair? What happens to the orchard?

7) What can be learned from Growingfruit.org?

8) Why not set up a Zoom meeting for this particular issue (advertise it well on this site), where people and organizations can be asked for their input. I'd give some notice and make sure people see it. Like I said, I log on sporadically. Also, have a half hour before and maybe an hour after for people to socialize.

OK, there it is. My numerous ideas to save the world. You can thank me later after all the ballots have been counted...

Here is a web page for the Back Yard Fruit Growers out of Pennsylvania. They don't have a message board and the newsletters are password protected but it looks like they have a long history and are still active. I notice that they have a scion exchange similar to the HOS.

Maybe they would be interested in participating in an online venue.

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dailey/byfg.html

"Backyard Fruit Growers (BYFG) started in 1990 as a quarterly assembly for exchange of information among amateurs in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania who wanted to produce good fruit for the family, propagate heirloom varieties, try new varieties and flavors, and respect and improve the backyard environment."

Hello, this is my first post to the HOS, although I have been aware of your organization for awhile and did attend one of your fall fruit festivals a few years ago. I wanted to bring up a few points as you discuss the next phase of HOS. I am a master gardener from Eugene, OR and have developed a strong interest in “fruits for the backyard”.

- To whomever suggested reinventing the organization, I would encourage you to do look at it. My impression of HOS is that it is focused on the Portland area, although its mission states PNW. Which are you?

- Personally, I am looking for the PNW version of the forum at growingfruit.org, with the panache of the forum at ourfigs.com. A place for active, online discussions about growing backyard fruit in the PNW focused on the opportunities and issues of our climate zone 8.

- I saw a comment made that there is no other local scion exchange. There is a very active organization sponsoring propagation fairs every year which used to be called the Spring Propagation Fair (https://springpropagationfair.com) and has transitioned into the Agrarian Sharing Network (Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/agrariansharingnetwork/permalink/2725684781013929)

- I really like the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Back Yard Fruit Growers mission statement, it could be used as a model for a similar one for whatever area HOS reinvents itself to focus on (Portland-area, PNW-zone-8, other).

Hi everyone.  I'm new to the forum, but my wife and I have been members of HOS for a couple of years. Just got the email yesterday about HOS closure, and just read all the above posts on this topic.

We are relatively new fruit tree growers (with a growing collection of young trees), experienced oyster growers, and generally interested in local food production. We live on the Oregon coast.

In addition, I have over twenty years experience as a software developer, Web developer, and webmaster, and currently maintain several Web servers.

We've learned a lot from membership in HOS, and we are very interested in seeing its work continued. Therefore, if no other solution has yet been found, I offer to host and maintain the website, the forum, and the newsletter (in electronic format, probably as a blog). I'm offering to do this at no charge.  Down the line, if the server expenses become more than I can cover, then maybe other folks will want to make voluntary contributions.  Also, I don't currently have the time myself to write articles or participate in forum discussions, but I can provide the tools for members to submit and publish content.

If you decide to go with my offer, I would need probably 3-4 months to get things set up on my servers, so hopefully in the meantime the current site can remain active.