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In this issue: • 10,000 registered members in just five weeks – and rising fast. • The BBC needs YOU! • Tell a Friend – your website needs you! • Adding your ‘attendances’ adds real value to Who-Remembers-me • Which attendance is ‘top of the pops’? • Tell us your story and win a bottle of Champagne • Is your registration activated yet? Time is running out. • Feedback – we want it all! • A word from founder Rob Billington Welcome to the very first Who-Remembers-Me.com newsletter. These quarterly newsletters to registered members are in plain text, to avoid browser and email client incompatibilities. For a more colourful version, please click here to view the newsletter on the WRM website. 10,000 registered members – and rising fast. It’s been an incredibly busy five weeks since the site went live on May 22nd. In just over a month we’ve reached the target we’d set for three. Even FriendsReunited took three months to get to this point! So we’d like to thank you for the vital part you have played – and continue to play, we hope, in building the membership of Who-Remembers-Me to the point where we’ll all be able to start finding those old acquaintances, friends and relatives – and they’ll be able to find us. We do need you to keep spreading the word, however, and to encourage everyone you know to register – it’s free until September 1st, don’t forget. In the meantime, please do be patient with the site and your searches – 10,000 people is a lot, but in a country of 60 million we know we’ve still got some way to go yet! Searching for an old flame/love-struck after one encounter? We’ve been contacted by the BBC for help with a programme being planned: “BBC Science is looking for people hit by love out of the blue and desperate to trace ‘the one’. Call Emma in complete confidence on 0208 752 5110.” Emma Love Assistant Producer Specialist Factual/BBC Science ‘Dangerous Passions’ Sounds interesting, doesn’t it – can you help – and are you feeling brave enough? Tell a Friend The ‘Tell a Friend’ link on the website is so easy to use – and you can ‘copy and paste’ as many email addresses into the box as you like – just make sure there’s a comma then a space after each one. So for a couple of mouse clicks you can tell everyone you know about Who-Remembers-Me. Adding ‘attendances’ adds real value to Who-Remembers-me Registrations are vital, of course, but they’re only part of the story. What will make Who-Remembers-Me a really rich place to delve into the past, are what we call your attendances. Attendances mark periods in your life where you met the people who now populate your memories. They can be anything from where you were educated, to where you lived, worked, played, drank, worshipped etc. There are 16 categories of attendances on the site and we are fairly confident they cover most aspects of people’s lives – but as with everything else to do with the site, we’re open to suggestions. So take a little time to go back into the site and start laying down your attendances. The more we all add, the more likely it is that people you used to know will find you – and you them. What does the attendance ‘pop chart’ look like at the moment? You won’t be surprised to learn that Schools are firmly in the lead, but we’re particularly pleased that Streets and Estates is in second place, well ahead of the rest of the pack. Founder Rob Billington was convinced that there was pent-up demand for the places we live, that other sites just couldn’t handle. The fact that there are also a large number of educational attendances is, he believes, a clear indication that people are pleased to have found a site where they can register details of their whole lives, not just their education. Is he right? We’d love you to tell us. Here’s the whole league table – ‘Places of Worship’ is doing surprisingly well, don’t you think? We’re sure it’s all going to keep changing in the weeks and months to come – and that’s largely up to you, the members of Who-Remembers-Me.com. 1 Schools 2 Street and/or Estate 3 Work Places 4 Colleges 5 Pubs 6 Universities 7 Other 8 Places of Worship 9 Sports Teams / Clubs 10 British Army 11 Royal Navy 12 Royal Air Force 13 Working Mens / Social Clubs 14 Members Clubs 15 Children's Homes 16 Royal Marines Tell your story and win a bottle of Champagne Publicity is vital if Who-Remembers-Me is to be a success – the more people hear about it the better. We know that when Rob gets interviewed on the radio, for instance, there’s an immediate rise in registrations shortly afterwards. We’ve already got a lot of interest from the press, but of course what they really want to hear is that a WRM member has found an old friend, acquaintance or relative through the site. So we want to make you an offer: if you’ve found someone via Who-Remembers-Me – or they’ve found you – and you’re willing to go public, provided the story is genuine and it is used by the media, we’ll send you a magnum of Champagne to say ‘Thankyou’. This isn’t going to happen overnight, but happen it will – who’s going to be first? Registered but not active? If you registered successfully you should by now have received an activation code by email so you can use all the facilities of Who-Remembers-Me. We know some people have had problems activating their accounts, due to a fault in the codes, but that has now been fixed. It’s best to use your computer’s ‘copy and paste’ function to enter the code when asked, rather than copy type it. If you’ve mislaid or forgotten your log-in details, click on the link that says ‘Forgotten Login Details’ next to the login and we will send them to you again. If you don’t have an activation key code please click on the link that says ‘Send New Activation Key Code’. This is located above the activation key code box, just after login. We will then send you a new code. If you experience any further difficulties, please do not hesitate to contact us through the support link on the home page. Any accounts not activated by July 15th will be deleted and anyone who has not activated their account will need to re-register from scratch, so don’t delay. There are also several hundred activated accounts that have not confirmed their year’s free paid-up registration. This can be done by clicking the link at the top of the page immediately after you’ve logged in. You need to be a paid-up member to use the search facility – and of course this is free for registrations before September 1st. After September 1st full registration will be £5 per annum, but there will be no charge just to register and add your details so others can find you. What can you tell us? We’re young and growing fast. We think we’ve designed a clean, clear, easy-to-use site that is already practically free of bugs and gremlins. It always takes some real-world usage to establish this beyond doubt, however, and we fully accept there may be things we can do to improve the way the site looks and works. Tell us the error of our ways, or suggest how we can do things better and, if we use your suggestion, we’ll not only waive the next annual £5 membership fee when it becomes due, we’ll also enter your name into our next Champagne prize draw. Rob Billington signs off I hope you’ve found our first newsletter helpful and informative and I’d like to add my personal thanks to you for joining Who-Remembers-Me.com. I am convinced that between us we can make this site the number one place to share and rekindle memories. It’s going to be a fun journey and I’m glad to have you along for the ride. You’ve been sent this email as a result of registering to join Who-Remembers-Me.com. Membership includes opting in to a closed mailing list that enables WRM to keep you advised of exciting news and developments to do with the site. If you’re happy to continue receiving this newsletter, which is only sent out four times a year, you need do nothing. |