Pride of the Line

Pride of the (On)Line
I'm proud to still be part of SiF after what will be 5 years on April the 5th. I'm even prouder to have taken over from Fat Hatt and carried on the work he did, as well as putting my own stamp on the forum. I realise that without the Hyperboards Glitch of 2005, I may not have been able to do this fully as I had limited powers on Hyperboards for my five weeks in charge there before everything went kaput. I've said repeatedly, it brought our forum closer together and allowed the members to gel in a united effort to bring ourselves back with a force. We did, and it took little over a month to do so, everyone starting from a blank slate and we've built on it since.

I feel I have no contradiction when I say I have the best membership on the entire net with regards to mature fans of Thomas and the Railway Series books. They're constructive, peaceful, friendly, creative and keen to play a part on the board. They've worked hard to help us get our Number One status and laboured even harder to help us keep it too. That "community" feel never came around without hard graft.

SiF Bashers...
This has been a problem since 2005 predominately, considering the first instance being when Fat Hatt closed off membership applications following his own prolonged absence. The ones who are usually found to do it are often former members who have been banned from the forum a while before and cannot face up to their own bad behaviour and our justification for dealing with it. Instead, an act of rebellion sets in and they try to attack as opposed to trying to resolve things rationally, knowing deep within themselves they want back in more than anything... needless to say, after THAT kind of behaviour, never likely to happen under my Administration.

Daily Motion Move
Become less bothered now about the account deletion from YouTube. While we may well attract less attention on Daily Motion in comparison with YouTube, I'm happier to use their services and have signed up for a Motion Maker account where I'll be able to upload full length and full quality copies of the SiF Meeting videos - some of which go on for just under an hour. The move from YouTube had been on my mind for a while, but I think now that I've been pushed rather than allowed to jump from my safety zone, I'm just going to run with it.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to add my new account TheSiFAdmin to their friends lists. I really appreciate everyone's support in getting back on my feet on YouTube, but I really will not be using it as much as I did previously in terms of uploads. Look out for more SiF Meeting Videos going up on the rh281285 DailyMotion page, and please continue to view the "tasters" we're going to keep on YouTube as a means of continuing on SiF's presence on that video sharing site. I'm on the lookout for new friends over there, so if you have an account, add me.

Research Project
T-Truck and I have a secret at the moment that we've only shared with the other staffies, ViPs and trusted members. The last we knew a few weeks back it had finally gone as far as we could take it under our control, and we passed it over to the hands of the professionals we have been working for who will have hopefully put things into full swing and acheived an amazing goal. We don't want to let the cat out of the bag just yet, but hopefully will have something either good or bad to tell either this month or next, whether it be good or bad news.

To those who do knwo what it is - don't let it go any further... everyone will know in good time and we may have an announcement and exclusive story that will rival that of the Railway Series 41 discovery last year. Remember, you heard it through SiF first! ;)

Next UK Meeting
The next UK Meeting is due to be held this weekend on two railways. The East Lancashire Railway in Lancashire, and the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in Cumbria. In attendance so far are Ryan, Loey Machan, Alaric, Chris The Xelent and Fox.

Should be a laugh!

All my best,

Ryan! :)