Hi folks,
I've been enjoying the various comments in recent posts, but I'm wondering about the status and future of the Forum itself. Who's working on this? What's the status? Will I click onto the HOS Forum site one of these days and get an error message?
Jafar,... 
Are you the one I have to ask about the current and future status of the Forum? For those of us who aren't, and haven't been, involved in the "Board-type" discussions over the dissolution of the HOS, do you have any info on the status of the Forum as it relates to its survival into the future? Who's hosting the site?
Geez, Jafar: I really hate to lean on you yet again, but you seem to be the one person on the Forum who also happens to have contacts with the folks related to the former HOS organizational structure, and the machinations surrounding the dissolution of this noble society. Those of us who are still active on the Forum seem to be fairly limited in number, and when the HOS is formally lowered into the grave, all of the Forum's associations with what the HOS represented will dissipate. Can the Forum stand alone, or will it die with the HOS? 
Reinettes.
Yes, apologies, I should have made an announcement or a post.
The Home Orchard Society paid for 2 years to continue this forum here with same webmaster and support, essentially in its current form but upgrading to current version of Wordpress. So that's through December 2022.
So in spring of 2022 we should figure out what our next steps are for continuity.
John Saltveit and I are acting as stewards of the forum and are welcoming help from existing moderators.
Again, apologies for letting anxiety about the future of the forum linger. I didn't realize I hadn't communicated clearly that we did secure a reprieve for the forum.
Hi Jafar,
Thank you very much for the clarification as to the longevity of the HOS Forum. I smile at the fact that you originally got "roped in" to your involvement. Will you ever be able to escape?
My other question is as such: "Given that the 'HOS' is no longer in existence, will the Forum itself still be identified as the HOS Forum, or will there be a change of name in any way?"
Not to put you on the spot, but what do you think of the odds that the Forum itself will survive as a source of information to former members, as well as widely scattered people seeking information regarding cultivation of fruits in their own particular geographic and climatic areas?
I have tremendous appreciation to those who have made the Forum a helpful source for diverse queries, but as I indicated to someone who sent me a PM not all that long ago, I myself have done my stints in trying to foster organizations that I believed in and I apparently no longer have the energy left to repeat such efforts.
Sometimes I wonder whether the newer generations no longer have time to live in their local reality because they're too busy living in a pseudo-reality online. Have humans completely divorced themselves from the natural world?
Reinettes 
"Believing themselves to be gods, they became fools..."
And, quoting someone unknown: "Everything in moderation."
Ignoring the misplaced subscripts of the previous posting:
With the HOS Forum funded for the next couple of years, will it somehow continue to be known by the same name [even though the HOS is no more?], or will it somehow bear a different name [--which I somehow find incongruous given that the society itself is dissolved--]?
Perhaps this is merely a matter of semantics, but I'm curious about the naming (or re-naming, if any) of the HOS Forum and how it would appear online. Clearly, a Forum associated with a particular Society is reasonable and not unexpected, but a Forum for topic discussion associated with a Society which no longer exists seems to me to be a somewhat existential problem. Am I over-thinking the matter?
Reinettes.
Me too. I'd say I didn't get my money's worth, but I'd be lying. Instead I'll say I paid more than I would have if I renewed annually 🙂
Really, the thing that pushed me over the edge into shelling out for the lifetime membership was the realization that I failed to renew/pay one year when I was a board member. I'd been accustomed to doing my renewal at the Fruit Propagation Fair, back then the Scion Exchange, and I missed it that year because I had to travel for work.
I figure "lifetime" is retroactive, right?
Ave Maria..., Ave Maria..., Ave Maria....
...I feel so puny. I wasn't raised Catholic so never learned what goes in the "dot, dot, dot", and my wife -- who was raised a Catholic -- can't recite it in Latin either. She often commented on how with "Vatican II" and its reforms, so much of mass seemed to lose its "mystical religious aura". The underlying, really sad thing about this is that we met during the 2nd semester of LATIN in college! We can't recite the Ave Maria in Ecclesiastical or Classical Latin. 
For those of you who had Lifetime Membership in HOS, you have my sympathy! I remember when I broke a spark-plug socket on my [Sears] Craftsman socket wrench set with a "Lifetime Warranty" and then discovered that Craftsman tools no longer existed. Bummer. I guess nobody ever bothered to define who's lifetime....
Jafar -- I think that the amortization of the monetary amount will certainly look better if you consider your own lifetime. Somehow it never seems fair, though. I think that "debt foregiveness" can feel good so long as it doesn't have to be frequently done.
John -- I'm a Lifetime Member of the Cloud Appreciation Society. [No. Really!] Thankfully it still exists.
Reinettes
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