If you've visited our website a few times, you would surely have noticed that at the top of the page, just below the masthead, there are two advertising slots. From the beginning, these spots have been occupied by the standard ads which ship with Joomla (the authoring system we use to build this site). We felt this was only fair, given that Joomla is free, and very deserving of extra attention.

Well, like everything in our overly commercial world, the time eventually came for Solar West to try and generate a little pocket money for the eyeballs which we bring to our little corner of the web. Every dollar we can raise through other means is a dollar less that we need to charge members and visitors to the swim nights after all. And so we dipped a toe in the water a little while ago.

Now, we're not trying to build an online business here. We're not pulling any of the tricks which websites can use to bring ususpecting visitors just so they can sell those extra hits. We're not even (re)publishing a flood of material with the same aim, as some blogs do, for example. No, what we have here is a website which primarily provides information about the club, its activities, and a little extra content which we find particularly interesting or relevant. That is not likely to change in the near future, or indeed until we get a lot more material from other people (members and others) worth publishing.

So, we have a smallish audience (a couple hundred people per day, about 12% of whom come back reasonably often), and a fairly targetted audience. Oh, and we do NOT want to put up annoying and/or inappropriate ads. Too much of the web has already become a disaster zone because of big, flashy, slow and aggravating advertising.

What we have come up with is that we will offer advertising to suitable candidates, either for cash or in-kind considerations. These candidates could be other nudist organisations, commercial or otherwise, people we do business with, or unrelated parties which we think would be of interest to our readers.

Our latest ad, for example, is for Bear Creek Sanctuary in Canada which features some stunning photographs, especially of their big cats. Why do we run this ad? Well, for one thing, Naturists tend to be closer to nature than most people. Secondly, the high quality of the site is worth seeing. And thirdly, we are talking to them of ways in which we might cooperate, which would provide some return benefits for our club, our members, and visitors to our website.

So, how does all this affect you? Well, everything we all do on the net is tracked, counted and analysed. And if an advertiser sees no benefit from dealing with us, they probably won't be back for more. So we would like you to consider clicking on our ads, or at least the ones which may interest you. We promise nothing bad will happen to your computer, and the site will open in a new window or tab, so it won't affect what you're doing on our site. The fact that you "clicked through" will show up in the log files, and may make all the difference between success and failure for our little endeavour.

Beyond that, if you feel a desire to support the advertiser, be it through a purchase or even just an enquiry, please be sure to tell them you saw their ad on our site. In this way they gain a feel for what works for them, and again, that helps us, and ultimately, you.