Oakman -
The Trailmanor Owners board has two parts. The first is the part for newcomers, and casual browsers who aren't sure they want to join the board. This contains "the lighter side of TMO". The other part of the board is called TrailManor Technical Discussions, and that is the part you are asking about. It has 13 serious forums about owning and maintaining a TrailManor. In this section, there are forums for Plumbing, Electrical, Towing Rigs, Appliances, Solar Power, Boondocking, Tires, and so forth. When a newcomer first signs up for the TMO, he gets 30 days free access to the entire board. In your case, you signed up in July 2008, and at that time, you could access it all. After 30 days, you were asked to make a choice - become a Sponsor for $12 a year, or have your membership downgraded to Registered Guest, and your access limited to the lighter sections. Apparently you did not sign up for sponsorship - perhaps you had no pressing need at the time - and so your membership was downgraded. If you need to return to full access, most people find $12 to be cheap considering the amount of knowledge and help that is available on the board.
You will notice that there is absolutely no advertising on this board - the owner set it up that way, to make it more valuable to the members. Without advertising, though, the expenses of the board have to be covered in some other way, and the sponsorship fee does it. Believe me, no one is making a profit, and everyone on the board's staff (including me) is an unpaid volunteer.
If you decide to become a sponsor, you should go to the board's main entrance page at
www.trailmanorowners.com, and click on Site Sponsorship.
Hope this helps. Join us. You'll love it!
Bill