Poll results, currencies, annual memberships, and plans for the future

(Sorry for this huge amount of info - but with pledge levels, currency, and annual membership, these are all connected and I wanted to keep you completely informed!)

Thanks to all of you who ticked boxes in the polls! The results look pretty straightforward - most people want sketchbook tours and sketching sessions, some would like Discord hangouts, and a good handful are in for workshops. 

From the poll results, it looks as if the live sketches and sketchbook tours are interesting for a similar group of people, so I have decided to combine the two on the existing Union of Maedhros level. Usually, we should be able to cover two sketches, or one more refined one, in an hour.  

The first live sketching event will take place on Thursday, 1st October, to start me off on Inktober! =D The invitation will go out to the Union of Maedhros supporters over the next few days. I would like to try an easier software, Jitsi, this time. We're using it at school, it gathers less data, doesn't force you to log in (better for privacy concerns), and as opposed to my students, I feel fairly sure that you guys are not about to kick me out of the session... All you need is the link and password, which I'll post. 

Discord chats will start in October, and are for everyone at $5 or higher! I'll post invitations/a link later, probably for mid-October.

You can find all the info on what is offered on what tier in the tier descriptions now, too!

I've decided to leave the workshops for later (I said it wouldn't be until January anyway). Those eight of you who ticked the workshop box, could you please send me a message saying what time would suit you best (3 pm to 7 pm EST is my frame for weekdays, 10 am to 7 pm on weekends, though I would FAR prefer weekdays). Please also note what sort of lessons you would like to see. This will enable me to see whether a consensus would even be possible. 

Currency: Patreon has finally enabled Creators (and supporters!) to set payment to their own currencies. I really want to do that, as it protects me from the ups and downs that we've had a lot of over the last few years, AND it shifts my conversion fees to me rather than to my bank. 

The current conversion rate is about 1 USD = 0.86 Euros, so expect a slight rise to your pledge. 

So, for example, if you've been pledging 10 USD, you will see the new pledge level as 10 Euros if you're in the Euro-zone, or as 12 USD if you're in the US, or as 9.50 GBP if you're in the UK, and so on. The only tier where this will be more noticeable is the $1 tier, as that will go to $1.50 (Patreon only works in .50 steps). EDIT: At least that's what I thought - for me, it still shows up as eighty-something cents. Can anyone check? 

To avoid any additional conversion fees for the both of us, those of you in the EU can also change to your local currency. For those of you who would like to switch your currency you can follow these steps:

1. On Patreon.com, hover over your avatar in the top right of your screen.
2. Click Manage memberships.
3. Find Jenny Dolfen, and click Edit.
4. Under Currency, choose your preferred currency.
5. Click Update to save your settings.

For those of you outside of the EU, you can also change to pay in your currency of choice (EUR, GBP, USD) which will help you avoid foreign transaction fees.

(More Info)

Annual pledges: If you already know you want to keep supporting for longer than a few months, and feel like saving up on that raise a bit, you can set your pledge to annual - that's another thing Patreon has recently rolled out. You commit to an annual pledge instead of a monthly one, and get 16% off it (that's two months free!)

(More Info)

Please feel free to leave me your thoughts, or any questions you may have about this slew of information!

Can't wait for the Inktober session! Hope to see lots of you there.