as nice as it could be and it would be a good investment, practically, it would be next to impossible. it would be so hard to get everyone who pays to be a part owner, the legal issues would be nuts.

I don't think there would be any legal issues. You would simply sell stock in the company. No particular member actually OWNS a piece of the land, they just own a piece of the company that owns the land. It'* very common.

Companies regularly have hundreds of thousands, or even MILLIONS of shares of stock out, with different owners, and there are no issues. Thats why I suggested going the route of selling stock in a company, as opposed to 9,000 people buying a parcel of land.

Hows Bonnevista sound?

That would be a good name. I have also suggested in recent chats some variations of the Salt Flats, like Bonneville Salt Hills, Bonneville Salt Flat, and so on. Perhaps Bonneville Mud Flats would be a cool name.

I would say theres not a chance of getting 9,000 members to give $5, assuming 9,000 of the members are even reachable via the forum or registered email. You have to realize we're talking about buying a freaking ISLAND - the buy-in needs to be higher than $5, or you'll have every idiot on the planet wanting in. I would say minimum $1,000 investment targeting the top 1,000 posters, which would generate $100,000. Or even a $2,000 buy-in targeting the top 500 posters (also generating 100k). More than enough to purchase the island and start developing it. If someone wanted a larger share of the corporation, they would simply invest more.

After purchasing the island, and having 30-40,000 in the bank, we could then take out equity loans on the island, and sell more stock, to start developing it into the #1 auto enthusiast vacation destination on the planet.

If it'* really to be #1, it'* going to have to be a more expensive island so that we don't go so far into the wilderness. Also, if we do have 30K or so to play with, we'd have to get a lot of room built up to support all those auto enthusiast tourists. Perhaps we should have boat racing enthusiasts or something like that. What would it take to establish our own country?

I agree, it will have to be a larger island closer to a mainland area like the coast of NC or something.

I'm not sure what it would take to establish your own country...but thats not a bad idea. We sound like schizophrenics right now.

if you had a $1000 minimum you probably lose at least 750 of you top 1000 poster, if there are even that many active members

That'* a good point. But it'* certainly more realistic than attempting to get $5 from 9,000 people, lol. I would say there are maybe 100-200 regularly active members, but I dont know for sure.

I guess some outside investment would have to be procured for this task. Also, at 1:30am I missed a ZERO in my calculations (doh). it would be 1,000,000 (one million) if 1,000 members pledged 1k.

With your numbers, eliminating 750 members, 250 members investing 1,000 would be $250,000. Thats alot of money.

Not to rain on your parade but we have a hard enough time trying to get people to buy calendars. Plus I think you both been hitting the bowl to much. :?

No bowl for me, lol. I'm mostly joking here in this thread, but it'* not entirely a bad idea to own an island. I would think people would be more inclined to invest in something like an island, than a calendar. You're talking about purchasing things at two totally opposite ends of the spectrum. Purchasing a calender is nothing like investing in a company Whats your return on the calender?