I thought the cafe was strictly horse related chat. The sofa was for other subjects? Or does it not matter?
A rebranding may help.How about just 'Horse Riders' ? - I do think continuing to cling to calling it New Riders we could be missing and putting off a big section of possible new forum members and I seriously do believe we need to be encouraging as many new people as we can.
I try my very best to stay loyal as I love the ethos and general underlying good nature and helpful content on the forum. However, sometimes even visiting every day reveals nothing new or interesting or further comments on some interesting topics. . Having a rather small and restricted number of regular posters does throw fairly innocuous threads into an unnecessarily confrontational spotlight not intended by opinionated and gobby people like me. Just makes the particular post seem like a huge splash in a very, very small pond. I do feel if we could increase the regular posting from a larger number of new and existing members this sort of thing would be avoided and we could happily discuss (joust even??) a much wider range of horse related topics, thereby making forum content more interesting to read and less 'fluffy' and discouraging of alternative opinion.
Unlike certain members I do NOT feel we have driven away the more active and helpful members, life moves on and sometimes more interesting and experienced colourful characters do drift away. But I do think with a really serious re think and presentation this forum could spring to life again and equal if not surpass its glory days and other forums out there that are still attracting far more new members than we do on here![]()
@newforest the thing is we know the forum is worth a fee, but people who aren't members don't and so if we go down the fee route then the chances are theforum will just get smaller and smaller.
Being join just to lurk maybe.This week alone weve had 12 new members. I know a couple have posted but what about the rest, are they just lurkers or people who have joined then changed there minds. We really need to find a way of capturing these members.
Id love to find a way to get them involved more.