Post by Dave on May 29, 2009 18:30:59 GMT
Firstly many thanks to all those who have made contributions on the forum this week, with the season over and not even a new player to discuss, finding things we can discuss gets that bit harder.
The mood on the forum has changed a bit over the last few days, but the mood on any forum can be decided by one post that a member might make and that has been the case.
We should always remember that we should always respect others views, even if we think they are talking rubbish, I have yet to read a post on this forum that was only made just as a windup, so I take the view all posts and views are genuine.
Thanks for all those that have voted as well, without your votes we would not get a winner and this award was my brainchild and I would hope it can keep going and this year we can see some brand new winners.
You have to post to be in with a chance and now we don't have much football to talk about, maybe we will see some posts made by our readers about something that really interests them. Maybe a hobby they have or just something they feel strongly enough about to want to get a debate started.
I know timbo keeps threatening to put up his other year book for our enjoyment and Romfordkev has some great photos, he will put up when he has the time, Chris Hayes will be treating us to his usual high quality photos very soon as he will be off to Snowdonia.
Well who is this weeks winner?
How embarrassing as its me and I do thank you all for your votes.
You will know I so often write straight from my heart and have been guilty a few times in making some grown men on here cry.
That has never been my aim but I have alway believed you need to write just as you feel and should never be afraid to show emotions if you are feeling them.
The post that you all voted on was the one I made about the forums up and coming birthday, once again written in the only way I know how, but then the post was about something that is deeply in my heart and about a place you have all made so rich and rewarding for me and it makes the efforts I put in to not only keep it all running, but playing my part as a member on here. seem so worthwhile and worth every second I give to the forum
My winning post
On Monday 25th May 2009 the TFF will be celebrating its first birthday and I hope you will join me in wishing the TFF a very happy first birthday and the only reason it is able to do so, is because you all joined and have made such great contributions to make the TFF the quality and successful forum it is.
It came very close to not even still being in existence after only two weeks, but I will come to that later, as I want to go back to the very first day and also in this post pay thanks to certain members who played such a big part in the forums early days.
I did not go to bed on Saturday the 24th May 2008 having any thoughts of setting up a forum on the Sunday, I had often thought about it before and I did have firm ideas about what sort of forum I would want to be a member on and how I would wish that forum to be.
Carol lent over the bed and kissed me goodbye at 7am On the 25th, she was off the work and I knew that as I get up early for work in the week, I would have to get up soon after she had left. The football season was not long over and I really wanted to make a post about how I felt as the season ended with nothing to show for it really.
I looked on a forum I was a member on and just felt that the post I wanted to write would have been wasted amongst all the one line posts and anyway it ran the risk of being deleted or altered or even getting abusive replies, so I decided not to bother.
I then felt the urge to just look at what forums were out there to sign up and run, soon I had found three that looked very good and really would have suited the needs of a new Torquay United Fans Forum. Proboards looked the best, the software was good, plenty of codes in the database to add if you wanted some function or other and more importantly it had a completely secure and private PM Service. One that only the sender and receiver would know a PM had been sent and only they would be able to read it.
I found myself filling out the forums and then I was signed up and had before me a very basic looking forum that had no boards and was all in white. I started to write down the objectives for the forum and what it needed to be based on. The most important things were it had to have values, principals, be honest and open and it would be the members forum and not mine or anyone’s else’s, I and anyone who helped me run it would be members living under the same basic rules as all the other members.
Members had to be free to express their own views and should be able to do so and not be subject to abuse from another members, the forum would not have groups who thought they were more important than other members, the sort that gang up and ridiculed anyone who dared to post a remark one of that group did not like.
The admin would not be there to use power to win arguments, or get into deep personal spats that went far beyond what should happen on a forum. No the admin needed to be a friend of the other members, there to help at all times and do their best to make the forum an enjoyable place and not one you would not want to come back too again.
Once all that was sorted it was time to make a banner and try and get some boards up and running, the forum back then looked nothing like it does today, it only had one category and all the boards where in that one. It also only had one member(me) so that was the next task to try and get the message out that now there was another forum and it hoped you might like to join it.
I sent an email to Jamie, but he did not reply for a few days, I also made contact with Capitalgull (Andy) as I knew he could get into contact with merse for me. Andy kindly did that and became the very first member to join the forum and slowly one by one more joined over the next week and also merse and I was as pleased as punch when I saw he had joined.
Love him or hate him you will not find a better forum poster on any forum in the world and I do mean that, I get to see plenty of forums on Probards support forum and I have never read any that contain the sorts of posts merse makes for all our enjoyment. So a big thank you to Andy and also to merse who in the early days was the only one really posting and anyone could have been forgiven for thinking it was the Merse and Dave R show on here.
Jamie made contact and accepted my offer to help me on the forum, I knew he was a man who shared my own views on how a forum could and should be run, so thanks Jamie for having the faith in me to deliver what I said I wanted too.
Those close to me( not Carol) were questioning if I had made the right decision to set up a forum when I did, as you may know Carol found out she had got the cancer back and this time all looked so much darker than it did five years ago. In the first two weeks I found it really was helping me cope with my real worries and concerns for Carol, I was able to spend my time out on the road planning my next big post, or changes I could make to the forum.
This was far better than having my mind go to dark places I really did not want to go too and I soon found out I was building a whole new world that I could escape into, a place where I found and made good friends, people who understood and showed they cared. But then only two weeks after I set it up it nearly never made it into a third week and I really was not prepared for what happened, or even gave it a thought some would want to try and bring the forum down.
I had stayed up far too late on the forum on that Sunday night and was just about to turn of my PC when I saw someone join the forum, quickly followed by a second person, both very well know to me. What where they up to and why had they joined I asked myself and I sat there knowing I should get to bed as I had to be up in four hours, but I knew I had to stay around to keep my eyes of what might happen.
After a few PMs sent to me I did not like I put the forum in maintenance mode, to get the midnight callers out of it, then an attempt was made to hack my admin account.. I did not go to bed, I sat there very deeply hurt and very upset, angry and so disappointed that some wanted to ruin or harm something that had become important to me.
Then it was time to go to work, I really was as low as I could get and I had my 370 mile round trip to face as I struggled to keep my mind on what I should be doing as well as feeling worn out and dead tired. All day my mind was all over the place as I tried to make my mind up what to do. One minute I was going to delete the forum and then the next I was in a fighting mood and would open it up when I got home.
When I returned to Toolfix my boss could clearly see my mind was very troubled, I told him what had happened and he said that with all that I was having to deal with over Carol, I did not need this right now. Go home and delete the bloody thing he said and feeling like I did, it sounded such good advice.
I drove home and put the car in the garage, Carol was waiting in the kitchen for me, she had been worried all day about me as she knew how deeply upset I was. She put her arms around me and I started to cry like a baby as I told her I was going upstairs and switching on the PC so I could delete the forum.
Don’t do that she said, you know you love the forum, look how you have run down the stairs and came into the front room shouting I got another new member. Every single time someone joined. It’s not like you to ever give up, let anyone ruin or spoil your dreams and she was right and I need to say a very big thank you to Carol for making me see sense. I also need to thank her for allowing me to spend so much of my spare time running the forum, but she knows I’m always there and close by should she need me.
I put a message up on the front page of the forum, it was still closed but the message said I hoped to open the TFF back up on Tuesday night, I then set to work trying to get answers so I could make the forum as secure as I could, to make sure no one could harm it. Its one of the main reasons it has not been open to guests and while I have opened it a few times, the fact is it always works better as a member’s forum.
I opened it back up on the Tuesday night and received so many positive posts about the forum being open again and an offer of help from JimD, what a great man and one I also want to thank so much. Now I did not need worry so much while out on the road about the forum, JimD was keeping an eye on it and it gave me such piece of mind, thanks Jim you were a rock when I really needed one.
Since that day I have never looked back, I will not lie and say the forum always gave me pleasure as some days it did not. I was still a bit unstable due mainly to my worries for Carol and somedays I came home all excited about getting to view the forum, only to see not a single post had been made all day. I was guilty at times of over reacting and making posts stating my concerns that posts were not being made.
I was wrong to do so and I should have just let things take their natural course, but when you want something to work so very much and it’s not quite happening, I tend to get myself a bit worked up. Over the next few months the forum grew in numbers, but more importantly they were the quality people I had hoped would join and soon we were seeing posts that you would never find on any other forum.
bbcgull found his way to us and worked hard running his prediction league on the forum and I want to say thanks to Brett for all his work he put into the forum.Mind you it has not all been plain sailing, we have had a few join who came only to disrupted the forum and try and lower the tone, but I said from day one I would not allow anyone to do that and if a person joined to try and cause the forum harm I would remove them and stop them gaining access to the forum ever again.
The greatest thing about this forum for me, is the real close and genuine community we have become on here and that showed when we ran the mascot appeal to buy Lewis his kit. Such kindness and generosity was shown and you have all seem just how you have played such a big part in helping Lewis and his family battle the illness he has.
I hope I’m still alive to celebrate the TFF’s 25th birthday, even if I’m in some home by then, I see no reason why this forum will not continue to grow and become an even bigger success. I started it and I give you my word that I’m fully committed to keeping it running and remaining the high quality forum it is.
My last and biggest thanks go to all the TFF members, without you this forum would be nothing and no matter what ever I did it would only be a shadow of the forum you have all made it
On birthdays you get cards and presents etc, well you can’t send a card to the forum can you? But maybe you might like to buy it a small present. I have paid to the keep the ad’s of the forum for the last three months and I now only have seven credits left, enough for only another 50.000 page views, we use 100.000 per a month at this time. I f you would like to buy some credits for the forum then please click on the link on the bottom of the forum.
Many thanks all and looking forward to birthday number two already
Dave R
The mood on the forum has changed a bit over the last few days, but the mood on any forum can be decided by one post that a member might make and that has been the case.
We should always remember that we should always respect others views, even if we think they are talking rubbish, I have yet to read a post on this forum that was only made just as a windup, so I take the view all posts and views are genuine.
Thanks for all those that have voted as well, without your votes we would not get a winner and this award was my brainchild and I would hope it can keep going and this year we can see some brand new winners.
You have to post to be in with a chance and now we don't have much football to talk about, maybe we will see some posts made by our readers about something that really interests them. Maybe a hobby they have or just something they feel strongly enough about to want to get a debate started.
I know timbo keeps threatening to put up his other year book for our enjoyment and Romfordkev has some great photos, he will put up when he has the time, Chris Hayes will be treating us to his usual high quality photos very soon as he will be off to Snowdonia.
Well who is this weeks winner?
How embarrassing as its me and I do thank you all for your votes.
You will know I so often write straight from my heart and have been guilty a few times in making some grown men on here cry.
That has never been my aim but I have alway believed you need to write just as you feel and should never be afraid to show emotions if you are feeling them.
The post that you all voted on was the one I made about the forums up and coming birthday, once again written in the only way I know how, but then the post was about something that is deeply in my heart and about a place you have all made so rich and rewarding for me and it makes the efforts I put in to not only keep it all running, but playing my part as a member on here. seem so worthwhile and worth every second I give to the forum
My winning post
On Monday 25th May 2009 the TFF will be celebrating its first birthday and I hope you will join me in wishing the TFF a very happy first birthday and the only reason it is able to do so, is because you all joined and have made such great contributions to make the TFF the quality and successful forum it is.
It came very close to not even still being in existence after only two weeks, but I will come to that later, as I want to go back to the very first day and also in this post pay thanks to certain members who played such a big part in the forums early days.
I did not go to bed on Saturday the 24th May 2008 having any thoughts of setting up a forum on the Sunday, I had often thought about it before and I did have firm ideas about what sort of forum I would want to be a member on and how I would wish that forum to be.
Carol lent over the bed and kissed me goodbye at 7am On the 25th, she was off the work and I knew that as I get up early for work in the week, I would have to get up soon after she had left. The football season was not long over and I really wanted to make a post about how I felt as the season ended with nothing to show for it really.
I looked on a forum I was a member on and just felt that the post I wanted to write would have been wasted amongst all the one line posts and anyway it ran the risk of being deleted or altered or even getting abusive replies, so I decided not to bother.
I then felt the urge to just look at what forums were out there to sign up and run, soon I had found three that looked very good and really would have suited the needs of a new Torquay United Fans Forum. Proboards looked the best, the software was good, plenty of codes in the database to add if you wanted some function or other and more importantly it had a completely secure and private PM Service. One that only the sender and receiver would know a PM had been sent and only they would be able to read it.
I found myself filling out the forums and then I was signed up and had before me a very basic looking forum that had no boards and was all in white. I started to write down the objectives for the forum and what it needed to be based on. The most important things were it had to have values, principals, be honest and open and it would be the members forum and not mine or anyone’s else’s, I and anyone who helped me run it would be members living under the same basic rules as all the other members.
Members had to be free to express their own views and should be able to do so and not be subject to abuse from another members, the forum would not have groups who thought they were more important than other members, the sort that gang up and ridiculed anyone who dared to post a remark one of that group did not like.
The admin would not be there to use power to win arguments, or get into deep personal spats that went far beyond what should happen on a forum. No the admin needed to be a friend of the other members, there to help at all times and do their best to make the forum an enjoyable place and not one you would not want to come back too again.
Once all that was sorted it was time to make a banner and try and get some boards up and running, the forum back then looked nothing like it does today, it only had one category and all the boards where in that one. It also only had one member(me) so that was the next task to try and get the message out that now there was another forum and it hoped you might like to join it.
I sent an email to Jamie, but he did not reply for a few days, I also made contact with Capitalgull (Andy) as I knew he could get into contact with merse for me. Andy kindly did that and became the very first member to join the forum and slowly one by one more joined over the next week and also merse and I was as pleased as punch when I saw he had joined.
Love him or hate him you will not find a better forum poster on any forum in the world and I do mean that, I get to see plenty of forums on Probards support forum and I have never read any that contain the sorts of posts merse makes for all our enjoyment. So a big thank you to Andy and also to merse who in the early days was the only one really posting and anyone could have been forgiven for thinking it was the Merse and Dave R show on here.
Jamie made contact and accepted my offer to help me on the forum, I knew he was a man who shared my own views on how a forum could and should be run, so thanks Jamie for having the faith in me to deliver what I said I wanted too.
Those close to me( not Carol) were questioning if I had made the right decision to set up a forum when I did, as you may know Carol found out she had got the cancer back and this time all looked so much darker than it did five years ago. In the first two weeks I found it really was helping me cope with my real worries and concerns for Carol, I was able to spend my time out on the road planning my next big post, or changes I could make to the forum.
This was far better than having my mind go to dark places I really did not want to go too and I soon found out I was building a whole new world that I could escape into, a place where I found and made good friends, people who understood and showed they cared. But then only two weeks after I set it up it nearly never made it into a third week and I really was not prepared for what happened, or even gave it a thought some would want to try and bring the forum down.
I had stayed up far too late on the forum on that Sunday night and was just about to turn of my PC when I saw someone join the forum, quickly followed by a second person, both very well know to me. What where they up to and why had they joined I asked myself and I sat there knowing I should get to bed as I had to be up in four hours, but I knew I had to stay around to keep my eyes of what might happen.
After a few PMs sent to me I did not like I put the forum in maintenance mode, to get the midnight callers out of it, then an attempt was made to hack my admin account.. I did not go to bed, I sat there very deeply hurt and very upset, angry and so disappointed that some wanted to ruin or harm something that had become important to me.
Then it was time to go to work, I really was as low as I could get and I had my 370 mile round trip to face as I struggled to keep my mind on what I should be doing as well as feeling worn out and dead tired. All day my mind was all over the place as I tried to make my mind up what to do. One minute I was going to delete the forum and then the next I was in a fighting mood and would open it up when I got home.
When I returned to Toolfix my boss could clearly see my mind was very troubled, I told him what had happened and he said that with all that I was having to deal with over Carol, I did not need this right now. Go home and delete the bloody thing he said and feeling like I did, it sounded such good advice.
I drove home and put the car in the garage, Carol was waiting in the kitchen for me, she had been worried all day about me as she knew how deeply upset I was. She put her arms around me and I started to cry like a baby as I told her I was going upstairs and switching on the PC so I could delete the forum.
Don’t do that she said, you know you love the forum, look how you have run down the stairs and came into the front room shouting I got another new member. Every single time someone joined. It’s not like you to ever give up, let anyone ruin or spoil your dreams and she was right and I need to say a very big thank you to Carol for making me see sense. I also need to thank her for allowing me to spend so much of my spare time running the forum, but she knows I’m always there and close by should she need me.
I put a message up on the front page of the forum, it was still closed but the message said I hoped to open the TFF back up on Tuesday night, I then set to work trying to get answers so I could make the forum as secure as I could, to make sure no one could harm it. Its one of the main reasons it has not been open to guests and while I have opened it a few times, the fact is it always works better as a member’s forum.
I opened it back up on the Tuesday night and received so many positive posts about the forum being open again and an offer of help from JimD, what a great man and one I also want to thank so much. Now I did not need worry so much while out on the road about the forum, JimD was keeping an eye on it and it gave me such piece of mind, thanks Jim you were a rock when I really needed one.
Since that day I have never looked back, I will not lie and say the forum always gave me pleasure as some days it did not. I was still a bit unstable due mainly to my worries for Carol and somedays I came home all excited about getting to view the forum, only to see not a single post had been made all day. I was guilty at times of over reacting and making posts stating my concerns that posts were not being made.
I was wrong to do so and I should have just let things take their natural course, but when you want something to work so very much and it’s not quite happening, I tend to get myself a bit worked up. Over the next few months the forum grew in numbers, but more importantly they were the quality people I had hoped would join and soon we were seeing posts that you would never find on any other forum.
bbcgull found his way to us and worked hard running his prediction league on the forum and I want to say thanks to Brett for all his work he put into the forum.Mind you it has not all been plain sailing, we have had a few join who came only to disrupted the forum and try and lower the tone, but I said from day one I would not allow anyone to do that and if a person joined to try and cause the forum harm I would remove them and stop them gaining access to the forum ever again.
The greatest thing about this forum for me, is the real close and genuine community we have become on here and that showed when we ran the mascot appeal to buy Lewis his kit. Such kindness and generosity was shown and you have all seem just how you have played such a big part in helping Lewis and his family battle the illness he has.
I hope I’m still alive to celebrate the TFF’s 25th birthday, even if I’m in some home by then, I see no reason why this forum will not continue to grow and become an even bigger success. I started it and I give you my word that I’m fully committed to keeping it running and remaining the high quality forum it is.
My last and biggest thanks go to all the TFF members, without you this forum would be nothing and no matter what ever I did it would only be a shadow of the forum you have all made it
On birthdays you get cards and presents etc, well you can’t send a card to the forum can you? But maybe you might like to buy it a small present. I have paid to the keep the ad’s of the forum for the last three months and I now only have seven credits left, enough for only another 50.000 page views, we use 100.000 per a month at this time. I f you would like to buy some credits for the forum then please click on the link on the bottom of the forum.
Many thanks all and looking forward to birthday number two already
Dave R
