Email draft — Jim Schneider, pre-meeting (Mon May 11)

Status: Ready for Eric's review. Drafted to send the day or two before the May 11 working session.

Recipient: Jim Schneider jim.schneider60@gmail.com

Subject: A few things before Monday

Send strategy: Best to fire from Gmail directly. If there's an existing thread (likely the GoDaddy / Account Recovery one), reply on that thread. Otherwise fresh email.

Attachment: The pre-proposal Google Doc, either linked in the body or attached as a PDF. Eric's call.

Format note: When firing in Gmail, use mimeType text/html with <p> tags per Gmail rules.

Draft

Hi Jim,

Wanted to send a few things over before Monday so you have a chance to look ahead of time.

Quick status: even with GoDaddy back in your hands, Shape Society still holds the keys to the existing WordPress site and they're still not responding. On top of that, while I was reviewing the live site I found that someone has snuck hidden spam links into the navigation menu pointing to fake pharmacy websites. You can see them yourself: go to bensontheatre.org, hit Cmd+F (or Ctrl+F on a PC) and search for "hydrea" or "imuran." They show up in the menu where they obviously don't belong. Google has likely been deprioritizing the site in search results because of it.

My recommendation is to cut ties with Shape Society immediately. Rather than keep chasing access to fix the same things that have been broken for months, we put that energy into a new build instead. We have the domain back, which is the part that actually matters. The rest can be rebuilt clean on hosting you control, without needing their cooperation.

I put together a short preview of how I'd suggest we approach that rebuild, [attached / linked below]. Numbers and structure are starting points to react to, not the final proposal. We can dig into the details Monday.

Quick frame: I want to be Benson Theatre's nonprofit web partner. Multi-year partnership where I rebuild the site, host it, and stay on for ongoing maintenance. Deep discount off my standard rates because I want to back what Benson Theatre is doing.

If we can get aligned Monday, I can start right away and have you on a brand new site within 30 days. No more waiting on Shape Society, no more being stuck because you can't update a phone number.

See you Monday.

Thanks!

Eric

Notes for Eric

• Tone target: warm-professional, no em-dashes, no AI tells. Per /chatty rules.
• Hack finding language: kept it plain (snuck, hidden, spam links). Avoided "compromise," "injection," "malware." The how-to-find-it instructions make the abstract finding tangible. Jim can verify in 30 seconds.
• No meeting offers since Monday is already on the calendar. The "see you Monday" close handles it.
• The "[attached / linked below]" placeholder needs filling in based on whether you attach a PDF or paste the Google Doc link into the body.
• Open variations to consider:
• If you want to soften the "not-great news" part, swap to "first, an unfortunate finding."
• If you want to bury the lede, move the partnership preview before the hack finding so the email reads as good news first, hard news second.
• The current order (good news framing → hack finding → proposal preview → close) sets up Monday well.

Gmail send instructions (when ready)

1. Search for an existing thread with Jim about the GoDaddy recovery. If one exists, reply on that thread. Otherwise fresh email with the subject line above.
2. mimeType text/html, paragraphs wrapped in <p> tags, no hard line breaks within paragraphs.
3. CC: nobody by default. If Miranda should see it, add her once you have her email.
4. Attach the pre-proposal as a PDF, OR paste the Google Doc share link in the body where it says [attached / linked below].