New management for VPCUK

[Justin]

Hi all,

As you are aware there have been some mod changes over the past week and different people involved in the running of the site and forum.

The reason for this is that due to work commitments and other personal matters i cannot afford the time VPC deserves anymore. As of last week the forum has been acquired by its new owner/Administrator.

Santa (Richard) will be taking command of the site and forum from now on with Emlyn backing him up with technical issues and the upkeep of the vBulletin software. A formidable team to say the least with their respective knowledge.

I have run the site for 10 years but have been struggling to move further with it due to time and work, i felt that this was a poor reflection of what myself and the other people behind the scenes had built up over the years and it was time for change.
I will still be a part of the site and for now at least part of the mods team whilst things settle in and become second nature to the new crew.
I didn't want the site to turn into an advertising outlet solely to generate revenue, and despite the few paid advertisers had accomplished that. For me it was always about the community, its members and the brand. These beliefs are shared totally by the new owners of the site that have more time to take VPC forward.

It was a tough call for me having built the site up from scratch over 10 years, especially after the data center crash where we lost so much of the site due to their total incompetence!

So really all that is left for me to say is thank you to everyone that has made the forum what it is today, members and staff. I have loved running the site and being a part of such a fabulous community.
To all of the mods from over the years, a thousand thanks, i couldn't have done it without you, your input and help was invaluable.
Congratulations to Rich and Emlyn, i hope the values that we discussed are upheld and perhaps improved upon moving forward.

Best wishes to all of you for 2012, i will see you all around

[M-R-P]

Wow - Justin, you should be proud of what you'be achieved and I'm sure the site is in good hands.

[AndysR]

Thanks for taking the time to update us Justin, it's a shame you've decided to take a back seat but I understand your decision and take comfort in the fact that the forum will continue with it's new owners. Having met Emlyn and Richard personally I know they will have the sites best interests at heart and I am confident the site can continue in the way we have all become accustomed

[The Flying Moose]

Justin, let me be the first to say thank-you. Your time and efforts have made this forum the place it is today. I cant imagine in the slightest the decision you made was an easy one and it will have without doubt pained you to "let the boat sail" as it were.

May I also take the time to Thank all the team for their efforts these past years and also thank moderators of old who have relinquished their responsibility but remained key members within our community.

On the whole there will be very few noticeable changes and most will be taking place in the background, those for instance as resolving the recent running issues. To that effect VPCUK should be for the most be alot quicker now due to a move to our new hosting facility.

The main day to day running of the site will continue to be run by the moderators and the management of the site by myself and Richard.

Finally I would like to thank all the site members for their continued support, as with all communities its you who makes this site happen.

Best Wishes

Emlyn

[claymore]

That was a bolt from the blue, but I know the site will be in good hands

[t5_monkey]

10 years of bringing sad-acts together to talk about their Volvos!

*applause*

This is the best community website I've ever used, it's a great shame to see you step down.

[daza-b]

good luck in the future buddy and thanks again for a good site full full of the petrol headed nutters, what more can you ask for lol

[Dangerous Dave]

Thank you for taking the time to start and keep this forum going for the last 10 years. Its a great achievement and its good to see there are people willing to take on the running of the forum.

Good luck with whatever you have planned for the future Oh Gracious Overlord.

And good luck Rich, Emlyn and the Team.

[t5steve]

a big thanks to you for all your hard work.........have only been a member for a short while but was welcomed with open arms and have since recieved help from many forum members........i know how hard it is to make a forum work so hats off to you..............i am sure forum is safe in its new hands.............once again a BIG THANKS to you and good luck with future ventures....

[Jamest5r]

Oh god were all doomed

[LiamT4]

Oh god were all doomed

I'm with you there.

[Porcine_Aviator]

Thanks so much Justin, your hard work and dedication has made the site and the club what it is today. The mods have been great and I know that the new managment will continue in your footsteps, or I'll send Tomcat around to sort them out

Thanks to everyone who has made the forum a place we all want to visit at least once a day.

Happy 2012 and may your business thrive and all your troubles be little ones.

Chris.

[Porcine_Aviator]

Oh god were all doomed

Thank you Frazer, Tomcat you know where to stuff his sporran ?

[PHIL V70R]

can we still have a place for are new dress and shoes....and draging...

[Santa]

Hi All,

Apologies for my delayed reply. There is still a lot going on in the background.

Thank you Justin and Emlyn for your posts and thank you for the support you've shown over the last few weeks and looking forward to continuing to work with you both moving forward.

This is going to be a incomplete post as we are still moving through a transition period but to summarise events to this point and whats happening in the short term and what we are looking to achieve.

Before Christmas an asset transfer was completed from Justin. The asset transfer pretty much includes the sites domain names and content.

On the 22nd December due to a 6-7 hour ish outage we decided to move the site from it's existing hosting provision to a temporary hosting provision. Due to the rushed and un-planned nature of this migration the volvot5.co.uk domain stopped working for many for up-to 3 days afterwards. Various patches were made to reduce the reliance on the volvot5.co.uk domain which among other things served emotes. The migration also had the side effect where Talk Talk users have been having issues accessing the site. (The issue stems from a resolution issue caused by a Talk Talk DNS server not updating its cache, TalkTalk users are likely to see the same issues for any other websites that updated their DNS records over the Christmas period).

As stated the website is currently sitting on a temporary hosting provision. The server currently hosting the site is due to decommission and the best solution I could arrange over the Christmas period. (Even though performance and up time seem to be great). The site will be moving to a new cluster at some point in the next few weeks to allow the up time, resiliency and performance I believe this site deserves. (Also to avoid long outages that both this site and VOC have recently suffered).

Those concerned with the great loss of content in 1894 (or whenever it was) backups are taken once every 24 hours are are stored in 3 physically separate locations across two countries. This will be increased to 6 hourly backups once the new hosting infrastructure is in place.

Moving forward for the short term very little is going to change. There will be backend changes to improve resiliency and performance and there may be certain forum layout changes and rule changes. These changes aren't to disrupt the community but to enhance it.

All code changes are tested in various sandbox environments before being rolled out onto the real "production" site to ensure as much as we can that nothing breaks.

As stated by Justin he is going to remain around to help the continuing transfer and hopefully will consider to remain a key member of the community long term. Day to day running/administration of the forum will fall on Emlyn. (The Flying Moose - and thanks mate :-) ). The moderators are the same as before and I enjoy working with them.

Advertisers, I will contact you individually soon, though in the meantime please feel free to contact me if you have any concerns. (PM or use the contact us feature at http://www.vpcuk.org/forums/sendmessage.php).

Sorry for the long and boring post, we will continue to post announcements as they happen. Please feel free to contact me (PM or Contact us page) if you have any questions, suggestions, concerns or grievances.

Forgot to mention, I doubled the size of all your PM boxes......try to keep them clear :-p

[Santa]

Oh god were all doomed

I'm with you there.

First strike!!! LOL

Thanks for the vote of confidence guys ;-)

can we still have a place for are new dress and shoes....and draging...

eeeerrrrmmmmm can we get back to you on that? ;-)

[JUDGENINJA]

Congrats Santa, good to see the site will be in safe hands..

As one of the old school(still have a volvot5.co.uk sticker on my 850) I think I've been a member since 2004, I have spent many an hour helping(or causing trouble) here. Justin you were a star and even put up with calling in unannounced to your shop for a coffee. You've always made this site as easy and as welcoming as possible for the novice and expert amongst us. Lets hope it continues into the future..

Richard -you've got a lot of committed members you've got to keep happy!!! So good luck.

[Justin]

And to this day you are always welcome judge

[Santa]

Richard -you've got a lot of committed members you've got to keep happy!!! So good luck.

Cheers Wayne but we're only owning the assets and keeping the lights on to the meeting place. The community is the community and the members form and belong to the community. (Still love you all though).

[claymore]

So, this explains the cryptic comment Rich made to me at the Christmas meet