Have a raffle of sorts where members can put in a small (1$) amount (no more than 5 times?) that would add up to what a provider would reasonably charge and pick a winning member to sponsor his hobby. Once a month drawing would be nice!
I posted this at the risk of sounding frugal! Please no flames from that point of view!
Thanks for your opinions.

I'll be charge of picking the winner.

We could create a PAYPAL account and have a neutral third party administer the dough. It's not a bad idea, son. Now, get it going. I can think of a few providers who are into the Paypal system and would enjoy meeting a newbie, if he happens to win.

At $1 a pop you'll need 100+ or so buyers to raise enough funds. That could pose a problem.  $5 a pop might be a better idea.  You could even do $10 a pop and have it be a 2 or 4 hour session to the winner. A lot of guys don't do multi hours cuz of the pricetag so it would really be a treat to the winner for a freebie.

Finding a neutral party to oversee legitimacy that the majority trust and know will be a challenge. Maybe the MODS of TER would volunteer (do we consider them trustworthy ? )