Thanks guys.

I think the answer has been laid out for you. I did not ask for the pool's running fees, and I definitely did not ask for donations.I was planning to close the pool because I was making nothing from it, yet I was exposing myself to risk because I took it upon myself to be open about issues that I had with the pool. However the community wanted the solo pool to continue so I said I would keep it open as a not-for-profit community pool with a seriously trimmed down version of the existing hardware (and in one location only.) The community then said they wanted better hardware/location etc. and I said I couldn't afford that but they all offered to chip in and pay for it. The pool fee will amount to 2% of probably 1 maybe 2 blocks per year. I wouldn't want to maintain a pool with the time, effort, and heartache that provides, with it not even covering the cost of running but they all offered to pay for it because they wanted it. I don't mind maintaining a not-for-profit pool if I'm not paying out of my pocket for it, nor exposing myself to risk by running it. Not many pool operators would give a quote for how much their server costs to run and expose all their code for free to the public, in addition to running it for no profit. The 2% fee would be some recompense for my time - I even offered to remove the fee entirely but they all insisted I leave it and perhaps increase it. I've said before I don't need donations, and I still don't. The community support is the only reason I decided to keep the pool running. It IS fun to run a pool for the community.

So long story short, once upon a time the solo pool was partly run for fun, and partly for me to make profit, and it stopped making profit more than a couple of years ago. I decided to therefore close it down, but the community wanted the same pool to continue as effectively a community-funded project but with me running it so they all forked out to make it happen which made me happy to continue running it.