Wherever you are in the world we hope you enjoyed the first half of 2007 and the mid-year break. For some of you this will have been a summer holiday and for others, July and August are all about the winter months.

Here at WRM we’ve been as busy as ever and as we head into October and November, we’ll be bringing you some more exciting changes!

First of these changes is the new ipoint reward scheme. We are very pleased to announce our new partnership with ipoints.co.uk and are keen to let you know how this is going to benefit you!

ipoints.co.uk is the UK’s most generous online loyalty programme with over one million members and 300 partners.

As with store reward cards you can now earn ipoints every time you use the WRM website and exchange these ipoints for gifts when you’ve accumulated enough.

Rewards include vouchers from major online stores such as Amazon and John Lewis, CDs, DVDs, wine and much, much more.

Here’s how the ipoints add up:

• Recommend your friends = 200 ipoints
  For each friend you recommend that then registers on our site you’ll earn 200 ipoints. The more you recommend the more ipoints you’ll receive.
  
• Add your attendances = 10 ipoints
  For each attendance you add you’ll receive 10 ipoints. The more you add the more ipoints you’ll receive.
  
• Add your profile = 25 ipoints
  Write or adjust your profile and you’ll receive a one-off reward of 25 ipoints.
  
• Upload your photo = 50 ipoints
  Upload your photograph and you’ll receive 50 ipoints.
  
• Send a message = 200 ipoints
  Send a message to another WRM member and we’ll reward you with a whopping 200 ipoints! (limited to five per 30 days)
  

So what are you waiting for? Start earning ipoints now by logging into your WRM account and signing up for ipoints.

Our second exciting development is the new Name Search facility we’ll be launching in October or November!

Many of you have asked why we don’t have a facility that allows you to search by name – well, it won’t be easy searching the world over for surnames - but that’s exactly what we intend to do.

Very soon you’ll be able to type in the surname of the person you’re looking for to see whether there’s a match on our database. If there is, we’ll tell you which attendances they’ve listed and you’ll have the opportunity then to send them a message.

And you thought we didn’t take your comments on board...!

Finally the third exciting change to look out for is the facility to upload as many photos as you like!

At the moment there’s room to upload just the one photo to accompany your personal profile, but so many of you have been sending in your old school snaps and reunion photos, that we decided it would be a shame not to display them somewhere.

So it won’t be long before every member will have the opportunity to upload as many photos as they want to – you’ll have your own private gallery so to speak and will be able to share a giggle with friends, poking fun of their long white socks and butter-wouldn’t-melt pigtails!

Well, hats off to our friends ‘down under’! It
seems that Australia is our fastest growing
member country with membership at an all-time high.

So in honour of our Australian friends, we’ll be taking a look at a couple of success stories from Australia...

Most recently we heard from Bev Atherton who managed to reconnect with an old school friend, living, unbeknown to them both, just around the corner from her!

Then there’s Cheryl Cole from Mount Isa in Queensland who found AND met up with an old friend from her school days.

Their two families have since visited each other and there has even been a school reunion for former pupils of the local Mount Isa State School!

What about the Class of 1976 from Colyton High, New South Wales? Former pupil Susan Bagust recently caught up with an old school friend through WRM, who was still in contact with a number of other high school friends, and now there is a planned Colyton High reunion in Sydney!

And talking of Sydney, let’s not forget Dot Cowie, who at the beginning of the year, made her daughter’s dream come true when she found her godmother through the site in time for her wedding...

This is just a small selection of all the stories we’ve received throughout the year, but we’d like to thank everybody everywhere in the world for taking the time to write in.

Please keep them coming! Every month we’ll reward the sender of the best story, our ‘star story’, with a magnum of Champagne or luxury food hamper.

For the very latest gossip from all around the world log onto the ‘Successful Stories’ page.

And don’t forget those attendances! Make sure you list as many attendances as possible. Without these we can’t match you with anyone.

‘Attendances’ are the names of any ‘search-engine’ institutions such as colleges, schools and clubs you may have attended, or streets you may have lived on.

There are 18 different attendance categories to choose from so there really is no excuse! The more attendances you add, the easier it is for you to be found by old friends. Click here to add attendances.

Remember, it’s free to add as many attendances as you like and it’s now free to search attendance categories. Whenever a new member adds an attendance that matches one of yours, we will instantly email you with a link to their profile.

We also send you a monthly ‘matching attendance report’ with all your matches at a glance.

That’s all for now folks; we’ll back towards the end of the year with more website news.

In the meantime, if you have any recommendations or suggestions that might improve our site, please let us know. If we use any of them we’ll send you a hamper by way of saying thank you