We upgraded the forums back in 2018 when we moved away from vBulletin to Xenforo 1 forum software.
We are upgrading again for 2020
We have continued to grow in membership and activity year on year, not just on the forums but also on social media. Our community is not about the platforms themselves, but about the people who use them.
Despite the growth on social media, our forums continue to thrive and we now have over 36,000 registered members and we are growing at a rate of over 500 new registrations a month, with an average of around 22,000 monthly active users.
Therefore we are about to invest in the forum software again.
This post is to let you know that we have just signed the contract to upgrade us to Xenforo 2 with some new exciting plugins and features on the way. This work will be done during April and should be completed in a couple of weeks.
We will keep you posted on this thread as there will be a couple of small periods of downtime required as we are also migrating to a new server.
And before anyone asks, we'll continue to support Tapatalk
All of this costs money and will cost us around £2,000 on top of our annual dedicated server running costs which are significant for a forum of this size.
So we'd like to thank our sponsors for making this possible as SEATCUPRA.NET is purely funded by their support.
We are a not for profit entity, and as part of our policy of never charging for membership, it's going to stay that way.
New logo and brand and merch
As part of the upgrade, we will be launching our new logo and rebrand. We're really excited by the new modern logo that still retains some of our original style.
This will be followed by some new merchandise including new stickers, t-shirts (hopefully personalised for each member) and something of exceptionally high OEM quality we're looking forward to sharing with you soon that you'll be able to affix to the outside of your car... the first person to guess correctly what it might be, gets theirs for free (they are going to be approx £15 each - TBC, as we're still working with the manufacturer and this will probably need to be an advance group buy initially). - updated (13th June) you can reserve your new chrome badge here.
As ever our merchandise is sold as close to cost as possible whilst allowing us to maintain the running of the merchandise shop, postage, materials and investing in new merchandise when required.
We still have some of our original stickers left in the shop currently selling at half price.
New moderators
The forum also wouldn't be possible without the work of our moderators @Jimbobcook @Legojon @Lozzy15 and @paddy6789 so a special thank you to them.
However, as we have grown we have realised that we would like to provide some more focused support to each car model so we're on the lookout for some additional volunteers to help with that. Specialists on each car, for example, a MK1 Leon Specialist, or an Arona specialist or even a detailing specialist.
These individuals would curate and highlight content for their respective sub-forums and support with specialist guides and hints and tips. If you are interested in helping out, please let me or one of the moderators know.
20 years next year
Whilst we've got your attention, we'd like to mention that 2021 will be 20 years since the community started.
Subject to the return to normal life (we hope you are coping well under these strange times) we are hoping to run at least one, but probably a number of special events to celebrate. Our meets over the last few years have been bigger than ever and they will be back. Stay tuned on that.
Thanks for reading and for being a part of our community. We hope you enjoy what we have in store over the coming weeks.
We are upgrading again for 2020
We have continued to grow in membership and activity year on year, not just on the forums but also on social media. Our community is not about the platforms themselves, but about the people who use them.
Despite the growth on social media, our forums continue to thrive and we now have over 36,000 registered members and we are growing at a rate of over 500 new registrations a month, with an average of around 22,000 monthly active users.
Therefore we are about to invest in the forum software again.
This post is to let you know that we have just signed the contract to upgrade us to Xenforo 2 with some new exciting plugins and features on the way. This work will be done during April and should be completed in a couple of weeks.
We will keep you posted on this thread as there will be a couple of small periods of downtime required as we are also migrating to a new server.
And before anyone asks, we'll continue to support Tapatalk
All of this costs money and will cost us around £2,000 on top of our annual dedicated server running costs which are significant for a forum of this size.
So we'd like to thank our sponsors for making this possible as SEATCUPRA.NET is purely funded by their support.
We are a not for profit entity, and as part of our policy of never charging for membership, it's going to stay that way.
New logo and brand and merch
As part of the upgrade, we will be launching our new logo and rebrand. We're really excited by the new modern logo that still retains some of our original style.
This will be followed by some new merchandise including new stickers, t-shirts (hopefully personalised for each member) and something of exceptionally high OEM quality we're looking forward to sharing with you soon that you'll be able to affix to the outside of your car... the first person to guess correctly what it might be, gets theirs for free (they are going to be approx £15 each - TBC, as we're still working with the manufacturer and this will probably need to be an advance group buy initially). - updated (13th June) you can reserve your new chrome badge here.
As ever our merchandise is sold as close to cost as possible whilst allowing us to maintain the running of the merchandise shop, postage, materials and investing in new merchandise when required.
We still have some of our original stickers left in the shop currently selling at half price.
New moderators
The forum also wouldn't be possible without the work of our moderators @Jimbobcook @Legojon @Lozzy15 and @paddy6789 so a special thank you to them.
However, as we have grown we have realised that we would like to provide some more focused support to each car model so we're on the lookout for some additional volunteers to help with that. Specialists on each car, for example, a MK1 Leon Specialist, or an Arona specialist or even a detailing specialist.
These individuals would curate and highlight content for their respective sub-forums and support with specialist guides and hints and tips. If you are interested in helping out, please let me or one of the moderators know.
20 years next year
Whilst we've got your attention, we'd like to mention that 2021 will be 20 years since the community started.
Subject to the return to normal life (we hope you are coping well under these strange times) we are hoping to run at least one, but probably a number of special events to celebrate. Our meets over the last few years have been bigger than ever and they will be back. Stay tuned on that.
Thanks for reading and for being a part of our community. We hope you enjoy what we have in store over the coming weeks.
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