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I am not one for big speeches. So I will try and make this quickish... but to not write this would be remiss of me after all this time.
I love this forum and always have ever since the day @Mrs Sport_Billy and I joined for advice and I have been lucky enough to be owner of The Guinea Pig Forum since 2016.
Before this, I was an Admin since July 2013 - I remember this date vividly because I was very proud to be able to help the place I adored - the forum wasn't in the great state you see it now, sadly a lot of staff had left and only @furryfriends (TEAS) remained and Debs was juggling both forum and the wonderful work she does at TEAS.
The forum software was defunct, this was creating lots of issues; with slowness of page load and we no longer had new members joining as registrations had been closed by a moderator due to spam issues, that meant the forum was down to 100 posts a day and effectively dying.
I approached Debbie with an offer of help, to which she agreed to and I was so proud to come on board to help Debbie out along with @Wiebke as Moderator.
The first few months were spent manually approving new member accounts sifting through 70,000+ pending applications for two hours a day- many of them spammers. Slowly with the injection of new posters, the forum got busier and we started to increase our post count, that was until a huge disaster struck -causing much sleepness nights and panic; but it was what I see now with hindsight as a blessing in disguise - a ‘hack’ from Syrian Cyber terrorists. This had affected many older unpatched Vbulletin forums (the software we used to use) The hack took place on 11th Sept 2013, the forum was taken offline and it looked like the end, I was quoted astronomical amounts to fix the forum ranging from £100 an hour and the work would take days, all felt lost I thought we’d lost TGPF forever.
That was until @BossHogg contacted myself and put me in touch with a friend of his 'Falken'. Boss got a temporary forum up and running and let as many members of TGPF know as we could, while Falken worked his magic on fixing TGPF.
Falken had no interest in guinea pigs but through the kindness of his own heart spent days fixing the forum for free - a true act of kindness and generosity, an indication of the kindhearted person he is. Words cannot describe how grateful I am to him and always will be. Falken as many of you know stayed on as an admin here for many years looking after the technical side of TGPF and bringing us up to date with software and features giving TGPF a whole new lease of life.
Bosshogg joined Debbie and I as Admin and we began again the process of building a better, faster friendlier forum, it is a period of change and growth I am very proud of I would like to thank them both Debbie for the opportunity to help here and Boss for his continued support as admin until this day, he is a very kind, thoughtful person and was an absolute Rock when the mess hit the fan with the hack.
Debbie made the decision to stand back from owning the forum in 2016 to concentrate on her life saving work at TEAS and offered me the chance to take over ownership. I had never wanted to own a forum, but it was a huge opportunity to take the forum i adore even further forward, in an age when forums where struggling and I was so deeply honoured to be thought of.
We appointed some more level headed, experienced members as moderators to help run TGPF as the forum grew in popularity seeing off competitors to become the world’s most active Guinea Pig Forum. Some are no longer with us, while others very much here and still working hard, the admins and mods over the years have been Cath @LisaAli @Lady Kelly @VickiA @Swissgreys @Wiebke but before I go on, I want to say some words about my staff, the first time I have and can ever refer to them as that -
I have never encountered such a dedicated hardworking, friendly, kind, thoughtful, patient group of people, who on a daily basis make me so very proud, they give their free time to ensure the forum is a safe place for all, dealing with all the squabbles, upsets and arguments that take place in a virtual world, while making sure that spammers, trolls and in some cases some nasty people do not taint our community here, often receiving abuse but always being moderate in their response as befitting their status, treating others with respect and tolerance despite what may be happening in their personal lives, never letting things cloud their judgement. I have watched each one of them step into the staff room and see behind the scenes of running a popular, vibrant forum and watched them grow into their roles.
I want to thank them for all their hard work and kindness, I haven’t been around as much as I should have due to personal reasons for the past 2 years and they have been amazing, so supportive and I see the love I have for TGPF reflected in them, I know they do what they do here because they love the forum as much as myself and every other member does.
I’d like to thank the wider staff team, those members of the H&I team who help so many people with their advice on medical issues and those previously holding these roles no longer active. I’d like to thank the all then Anniversary herd team for their hard work organising events, competitions and so much more. Thanks to the Forum Buddies and all those that have filled the roles over the years. One final word of thanks to @MattW , Matt is our host and all round great guy, he hosts the forum and looks after the software for us, fixing any major issues and keeping the fourm running, Matt has provided me with so much help during the past 6 years – I thank him for that.
I want penultimately thank you, yes you… the person reading this. Without you the forum is nothing, anyone can run a forum, appoint staff and have no posters
Forums need members and there are far too many great members on here to mention by name, some have posted for years and are still active, some have left, others pop in from time to time and others now with only a few posts to their name, but are all drawn to the forum and a sense of belonging.
You the person reading this is what makes a forum! A staff member, an owner is nothing special - they are just there to try and make sure the forum runs steadily, safely and without too much drama. Members are the heart of the forum. Every day I come on here and I see you giving your time to help and advice others on piggies welfare, offering condolences in the Rainbow Bridge section, sharing photos, chatting to others, making connections, looking out for each other, being so inclusive of all comers. Each and every one of you makes me proud and I hope that in the forthcoming months when I can I get to interact with members I have never spoken to before.
My last word of thanks is to the entity that is TGPF itself, this corner of the internet I love and call home, the logo of the two piggies, the green font. You have helped me so much TGPF, through caring for our pigs, finding friendships that will last a lifetime, by providing and giving comfort to people, lots of laughter and at several points tears. The forum got me through the loss of my Dad and so much more many life changes, I have grew up with it. It will always have a special place in my heart.
From now, I have handed over ownership of the forum to Tom you will know him as @BossHogg, he is a good, kind man, he has experience of owning forums and has been Admin since 2013 with myself. I know everyone will support him the way you have me. I am not leaving the forum completely but due to personal reasons I may not be around as much for the short to medium term, hence my decision to step down as owner and the future of my extent of involvement remains uncertain during this period. I will however be stopping on unless Tom fires me as an Admin; and hope to be a little more active on forum when time allows. I want to thank Boss for everything and agreeing to take the forum on.
We as staff do not expect this to change the forum in anyway unless absolute power corrupts absolutely in which case I fully expect the piggies in the TGPF logo to have Boss’s faces grafted onto them and the forum become a shrine to his form… However he is more Gandalf than Golem so I think we will be just fine.
The domain name and forum will now be owned by @BossHogg - Tom and he will be legal owner of TGPF, hosting is currently paid until Sept 2022 and Matt is still our host. In real terms nothing changes, the forum will be as secure as ever.
Thank you all so much for your support over the years, this is not goodbye…
Mucho love
Lee
I love this forum and always have ever since the day @Mrs Sport_Billy and I joined for advice and I have been lucky enough to be owner of The Guinea Pig Forum since 2016.
Before this, I was an Admin since July 2013 - I remember this date vividly because I was very proud to be able to help the place I adored - the forum wasn't in the great state you see it now, sadly a lot of staff had left and only @furryfriends (TEAS) remained and Debs was juggling both forum and the wonderful work she does at TEAS.
The forum software was defunct, this was creating lots of issues; with slowness of page load and we no longer had new members joining as registrations had been closed by a moderator due to spam issues, that meant the forum was down to 100 posts a day and effectively dying.
I approached Debbie with an offer of help, to which she agreed to and I was so proud to come on board to help Debbie out along with @Wiebke as Moderator.
The first few months were spent manually approving new member accounts sifting through 70,000+ pending applications for two hours a day- many of them spammers. Slowly with the injection of new posters, the forum got busier and we started to increase our post count, that was until a huge disaster struck -causing much sleepness nights and panic; but it was what I see now with hindsight as a blessing in disguise - a ‘hack’ from Syrian Cyber terrorists. This had affected many older unpatched Vbulletin forums (the software we used to use) The hack took place on 11th Sept 2013, the forum was taken offline and it looked like the end, I was quoted astronomical amounts to fix the forum ranging from £100 an hour and the work would take days, all felt lost I thought we’d lost TGPF forever.
That was until @BossHogg contacted myself and put me in touch with a friend of his 'Falken'. Boss got a temporary forum up and running and let as many members of TGPF know as we could, while Falken worked his magic on fixing TGPF.
Falken had no interest in guinea pigs but through the kindness of his own heart spent days fixing the forum for free - a true act of kindness and generosity, an indication of the kindhearted person he is. Words cannot describe how grateful I am to him and always will be. Falken as many of you know stayed on as an admin here for many years looking after the technical side of TGPF and bringing us up to date with software and features giving TGPF a whole new lease of life.
Bosshogg joined Debbie and I as Admin and we began again the process of building a better, faster friendlier forum, it is a period of change and growth I am very proud of I would like to thank them both Debbie for the opportunity to help here and Boss for his continued support as admin until this day, he is a very kind, thoughtful person and was an absolute Rock when the mess hit the fan with the hack.
Debbie made the decision to stand back from owning the forum in 2016 to concentrate on her life saving work at TEAS and offered me the chance to take over ownership. I had never wanted to own a forum, but it was a huge opportunity to take the forum i adore even further forward, in an age when forums where struggling and I was so deeply honoured to be thought of.
We appointed some more level headed, experienced members as moderators to help run TGPF as the forum grew in popularity seeing off competitors to become the world’s most active Guinea Pig Forum. Some are no longer with us, while others very much here and still working hard, the admins and mods over the years have been Cath @LisaAli @Lady Kelly @VickiA @Swissgreys @Wiebke but before I go on, I want to say some words about my staff, the first time I have and can ever refer to them as that -
I have never encountered such a dedicated hardworking, friendly, kind, thoughtful, patient group of people, who on a daily basis make me so very proud, they give their free time to ensure the forum is a safe place for all, dealing with all the squabbles, upsets and arguments that take place in a virtual world, while making sure that spammers, trolls and in some cases some nasty people do not taint our community here, often receiving abuse but always being moderate in their response as befitting their status, treating others with respect and tolerance despite what may be happening in their personal lives, never letting things cloud their judgement. I have watched each one of them step into the staff room and see behind the scenes of running a popular, vibrant forum and watched them grow into their roles.
I want to thank them for all their hard work and kindness, I haven’t been around as much as I should have due to personal reasons for the past 2 years and they have been amazing, so supportive and I see the love I have for TGPF reflected in them, I know they do what they do here because they love the forum as much as myself and every other member does.
I’d like to thank the wider staff team, those members of the H&I team who help so many people with their advice on medical issues and those previously holding these roles no longer active. I’d like to thank the all then Anniversary herd team for their hard work organising events, competitions and so much more. Thanks to the Forum Buddies and all those that have filled the roles over the years. One final word of thanks to @MattW , Matt is our host and all round great guy, he hosts the forum and looks after the software for us, fixing any major issues and keeping the fourm running, Matt has provided me with so much help during the past 6 years – I thank him for that.
I want penultimately thank you, yes you… the person reading this. Without you the forum is nothing, anyone can run a forum, appoint staff and have no posters
Forums need members and there are far too many great members on here to mention by name, some have posted for years and are still active, some have left, others pop in from time to time and others now with only a few posts to their name, but are all drawn to the forum and a sense of belonging.You the person reading this is what makes a forum! A staff member, an owner is nothing special - they are just there to try and make sure the forum runs steadily, safely and without too much drama. Members are the heart of the forum. Every day I come on here and I see you giving your time to help and advice others on piggies welfare, offering condolences in the Rainbow Bridge section, sharing photos, chatting to others, making connections, looking out for each other, being so inclusive of all comers. Each and every one of you makes me proud and I hope that in the forthcoming months when I can I get to interact with members I have never spoken to before.
My last word of thanks is to the entity that is TGPF itself, this corner of the internet I love and call home, the logo of the two piggies, the green font. You have helped me so much TGPF, through caring for our pigs, finding friendships that will last a lifetime, by providing and giving comfort to people, lots of laughter and at several points tears. The forum got me through the loss of my Dad and so much more many life changes, I have grew up with it. It will always have a special place in my heart.
From now, I have handed over ownership of the forum to Tom you will know him as @BossHogg, he is a good, kind man, he has experience of owning forums and has been Admin since 2013 with myself. I know everyone will support him the way you have me. I am not leaving the forum completely but due to personal reasons I may not be around as much for the short to medium term, hence my decision to step down as owner and the future of my extent of involvement remains uncertain during this period. I will however be stopping on unless Tom fires me as an Admin; and hope to be a little more active on forum when time allows. I want to thank Boss for everything and agreeing to take the forum on.
We as staff do not expect this to change the forum in anyway unless absolute power corrupts absolutely in which case I fully expect the piggies in the TGPF logo to have Boss’s faces grafted onto them and the forum become a shrine to his form… However he is more Gandalf than Golem so I think we will be just fine.
The domain name and forum will now be owned by @BossHogg - Tom and he will be legal owner of TGPF, hosting is currently paid until Sept 2022 and Matt is still our host. In real terms nothing changes, the forum will be as secure as ever.
Thank you all so much for your support over the years, this is not goodbye…
Mucho love
Lee
Last edited:
Things happen for a reason.
I felt it was something that Ellie did and she didn't need her mum to be involved! It was only when Ellie told me that I had to be a member to go to a forum fundraising event, that I signed up!
x
. Thank you for leading a reliable, trustworthy forum helping me to give my piggies the best life possible. On a personal note thank you for supporting a forum that helped me connect with others during the dark days of lockdown. You are undoubtedly one in a million 
