The following notification has been received from our hosting company. It's early morning, so hopefully will not cause too many problems.
Dear UK2 Client,Please read this maintenance notification in full as it affects your UK2 account and services.
What's happening Our Networks Team will be performing maintenance on the network devices in our London (LON2) location. This will take place on Thursday the 28th of March 2024 from 04:00 UTC until 06:00 UTC. During the maintenance window, technical staff be performing firmware upgrades to key network infrastructure. All traffic headed into, or out of this data centre may be degraded for the duration of the change.
The maintenance will impact your server(s) with the following primary IP(s) only: 109.123.101.93
What's the impact? Due to the nature of this work, we expect there to be up to 2 hours of degraded network connectivity during this window for the servers listed above. We ask that you stop any services, and save any work prior to the start of this maintenance.Several precautions are currently in place to ensure that the maintenance happens as seamlessly as possible. While the maintenance on some services may complete faster than others, we do ask that you prepare for the potential downtime of the full maintenance window.
As always, if you have any questions about this scheduled maintenance or anything else related to your UK2.NET account, please contact our support team at your earliest convenience. We are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to answer any questions you may have.
Best regards, Your UK2 Team
Due to increased overheads, we can no longer afford to cover the costs of events submitted by commercial venues. From the 11th March 24, events submitted by commercial venues will only be accepted if the venue has a current Standard Listing in the NFED Services Directory. Commercial venues include: equestrian centres, livery yards, cross country courses, etc, that hold or host equestrian events as part of their business.
Events submitted by clubs and individuals are unchanged.
The cost of a Standard Listing in the NFED Services Directory is only £40 per year or £3 per month (£36 per year) by PayPal subscription. The listing will support the NFED, helping us to provide this popular service.
Standard Listings can go in up to 4 categories, have a logo or main image and a further 20 photos in the gallery. Just send in the details and all the work is done for you, it couldn't be easier!
When the listing is set up, all events held at the venue can be submitted free of charge.
The listing will be linked from events held at the venue, providing a better experience for our users and advertising for the venue. Listings paid monthly by PayPal subscription will be shared on our social media pages each time the payment is received.
This will apply to all types of events submitted by the venue including shows, competitions and clinics. Links will now be permitted in the event details for those with a listing. This will help those venues that wish to send users to their own websites for times, entries or further information.
The event submissions form, Guidelines, Help and FAQs have been updated.
If you would like to submit a Directory Listing, please Click Here
Why are these changes necessary?
The NFED was intended as a complete resource with the directory and event calendar interlinked. This provides a complete experience for our users whilst financing the events section and was working well.
Unfortunately, over recent years: equine flu, strangles, covid and rocketing energy prices resulted in many venues cancelling events and not renewing the directory listings. During this time, we have kept the NFED ticking over and covered all expenses ourselves, but this can’t continue.
Things have now returned to near normal and events are running again. Many commercial venues have started sending in lists of events, which is great news, but haven’t renewed their directory listings.
Putting these events in the diary is very time consuming and does cost us money. We have been politely asking for help, but this hasn’t happened so the time has come to make these changes.
The event diary is a popular resource and one of the few places where all events can be seen regardless of which online entry system is used.
Hopefully, with just a little help, we can keep it going!
NFED Admin
It’s that time of year when organisers are planning events & we are happy to put them in the diary, but please ensure that all required information is supplied or we can’t help you.
Please use the submission form, the big blue button marked +New Event at the top of the diary. It’s very easy, but if you have any problems, check out the FAQs for other ways to submit events.
Using the form will ensure that the correct information is received in a format that works.
We are getting a lot of emails with partial information, sorry but we don’t have time to look for or chase up the details & these will simply be ignored.
Hopefully, with your help we can keep the event diary running properly & a handy service for everyone.
Thank youSteve
News Pages Updated
The old Forest News, Crime News & Business news pages have been replaced by a single news page using the far more modern software. Apart from simplifying & updating the site, it now makes it possible to share each news article separately.
As usual, if you have any problems or if you wish to post any news items, please get in touch.
The Racing News & Equine News are unchanged. Both of these pages update automatically from external sources.
A few minor changes have been made to the menus & site colours to clearly differentiate between the four many sections. If you are seeing mixed colours, please try clearing your internet history to ensure that old file are replaced by the latest versions.
The NFED is 25 years old this year, which really is unbelievable.
It has been quite a journey for us personally, from the original idea back in 1998 when it was just an extra section of www.ckart.co.uk to taking the plunge & starting the standalone NFED website in 1999.
As it grew, I struggled to keep on top of it whilst having a full time job, then in 2009 I accepted voluntary redundancy to run the site full time. Now, I am receiving a pension & running the site as a hobby.
We have made some great friends & had lots of adventures along the way. We have been thrown off several servers dues to excess traffic, so had to learn how to run our own server. Before the social media, there were the ups & downs of running the forums, we have helped to catch scammers, we have had two Facebook pages closed down, been finalists in Hampshire web awards, survived foot & mouth, equine flu, strangles & covid epidemics to name just a few.
The internet has changed drastically, from dial up modems, two common browsers & screen sizes, to super-fast fibre connections, multiple devices, screen sizes & now more views on mobiles than larger screens.
Around us, the New Forest has become a National Park & many of our original users have now, like us become grandparents.
Throughout all of this, we have deliberately kept the site small, personal & manageable from our home in Sway. I like to think of it as an online version of a very friendly but busy corner shop. I am often contacted by people that have moved away & are very disappointed that there is nothing like the NFED in their new area.
This is how we would like it to continue, but adjusted to fit in with our busy lives & most importantly, pay for itself. To this end, the site has been trimmed down over the last year with the removal of under used sections. The Help & FAQ have been developed to allow us to remove the business phone, we can still be contacted by Email if needed.
The payment system has been simplified & moved away from Sagepay & Global Payments to PayPal for card processing. This has saved a fair amount of money, but this was quickly swallowed up by increased shopping cart charges.
Software subscriptions are now a large expense. When we started, any software was on a single licence but these have now changed to subscription. Without the software such as MS Office, Adobe & CPanel, we simply can’t run the site or server, so we have no choice.
The most labour intensive section is event diary. It does bring in a lot of traffic, who then go on to view the adverts & services that make it all work, but we desperately need more support of equestrian businesses, venues & equestrian centres to make this worthwhile.
If you own or use a venue or, offer any kind of service to the equestrian community, please look at how it can be advertised in the Service Directory. Costs are only £3.00 per month for a full listing or £1.50 per month for a basic economy listing, each time the payment is received, the listing is shared on our social pages giving further publicity & amazing value for money.
Anyway, we thank you all for your continued support & hopefully a few more years of this unique little corner of the internet.
Happy New Year & Happy Riding 2024
Steve & Claire.
We are no longer accepting miscellaneous adverts which include general household items or furniture. This helps to simplify the administration and focus on the intended equestrian and countryside adverts.
The classifieds miscellaneous category has been set to view only, so although existing adverts can be seen, new adverts can no longer be submitted to the miscellaneous category.
This helps to simplify the administration & focus on the intended equestrian & countryside adverts.
When the last of existing ads has expired, the miscellaneous category will be removed entirely.
All other categories are completely unaffected.
Card payments processing has been changed over from Opayo (formally Sagepay) to PayPal Commerce Platform.
If you are a regular user, you will notice a different look but it is actually easier to use & a Paypal account is not needed for card payments.
Apart from the ease of use for customers, there are considerable savings & less administration needed, which all helps to keep the NFED online.
Any problems, please get in touch.
Update 01-09-23Facebook have now fixed the issue so the share buttons are working normally again.
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Facebook seem to be having an issue with their share button. When something has been shared once, the button fails to load again, so I assume it is connected to the Facebook share counter.
This is all handled by Facebook servers, so it's just a case of waiting until they get around to fixing it, hopefully no too long.
It doesn't affect the NFED in any other way & ads/events can still be shared from the NFED Facebook page or using other sharing methods.
The NFED was started way back in 1999 in my spare time, but by 2009 the site had become so busy that I was struggling to manage everything & was seriously considering closing it down when I was given the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy.
Obviously giving up a real job to run my own small business was a huge risk, but after 22 years of working 12 hour shifts, it was a risk worth taking. I knew a small niche business was never going to make a fortune or even match my wages, but the quality of life, health benefits & the time it allowed me to spend with family & horses was definitely worth a go & I have never regretted this decision.
Now after 24 years of running the NFED I have further decisions to make as I have just qualified for my company pension.
I fully intend to keep the NFED running for as long as possible, but more as a hobby, so some changes will have to be made to improve flexibility & fit in with our future plans.
Don’t worry, you shouldn’t really notice anything different, most changes will occur in the back-end & administration, but I am looking into how the time spent running the site can be reduced.
Ads are normally approved very quickly & this will continue for most of the time, but we intend to spend more time out of the office so the delays will become more frequent.
We have already removed phone support as the majority of calls were a complete waste of time & not connected to the NFED in anyway. The FAQS do cover virtually all the queries we receive, please do read them before contacting us & if you have our personal numbers, please don’t call them for NFED business.
The NFED server costs run into four figures. To cover this, we have to charge for adverts, but I am looking at the payment options. We currently accept card payments via the payment gateway Opayo (Sagepay), PayPal & bank transfer.
Processing card payments is expensive, but only approximately 30% of payments are made by card so it may be worth removing this option. Card payments could still be made through PayPal & banking app payments are becoming more popular, so worth promoting. This would remove a lot of expenditure & administration, so well worth considering.
I will be looking into reducing the length of time that adverts are live. The current six months, does seem excessive with very few people looking at the ads over three months old.
The Services Directory may change to PayPal subscription only. The majority of listings are now on subscription, so this would remove the weekly task of sending out reminders to the few that are not.
To keep the Event Calendar viable, we do need more help from event organisers & venues. The events section is by far the most labour intensive part of the site, some of the submissions take a long time to sort out, even correcting simple mistakes & spelling takes time. I know there is a real need to have a single calendar where all events can be seen regardless of which entry system is used, but very few venues put anything back into the site. If it is going to continue, I will be looking into how this can be improved or it may simply not be worth it. This would be a great shame but I’ll see how it goes & if you are organising any events, please encourage the venue to take out a listing in the directory. Standard listings cost only £3.00 per month & a “Check Out the Venue” link would be added to all events at that venue.
Finally the newsletter. Again, compiling the newsletter each week is very time consuming, so this could be reduced. Options are to reduce the classifieds categories included, go fortnightly or even monthly.
These are all just ideas at the moment to keep the site online for a few more years as more of a hobby than a business.
If you have any thoughts, please let me know by email editor@nfed.co.uk, I just don't get time to check or reply to social media posts.
Steve
The popular website sharing company AddThis which we have used for many years closed down on the 31st May.
We weren’t aware of this until the share buttons disappeared, but like the millions of websites that used the service, we now have to remove all traces of the code from the NFED. This will take a while, but it has started.
Most browsers & devices now have built in sharing options, so it won’t really be missed & this probably led to the demise of the AddThis service.
The Facebook & Twitter buttons are unaffected.
UPDATE 14-06-23Facebook & Twitter share buttons now added to the classifieds to replace the AddThis service.
Since the end of April, we have been running the NFED without an office due to building alterations.
Please can we remind every to please kindly read the guidelines before accepting them & check FAQs before contacting us. We will get back to you as soon as we can, but there will be unavoidable delays, it is normally far quicker to see the FAQs.
Apologies for any delays & please bear with us, things should be back to normal early July.
Please use emojis sparingly and avoid replacing words or prices completely with emojis.
The NFED can be viewed on any device with a browser, from phones to TVs. Some devices may render the emoji differently or fail to show them at all.
Prices should be shown numerically or in text that can be read by anyone, never in a cryptic emoji code unless you are actually trading in carrots!
We completely understand that this trend is used on social media to attempt to get around rules on selling animals, but there is no need to do the same on the NFED and is confusing to many viewers that do not use social media.
As the results section has received no new submissions since last year, the results section has now been removed to clear server space. If there becomes a need in the future, we can replace it.
The Event Diary is working well & remains unchanged.
Like many small businesses, we are struggling with increased overheads, cost of software licensing, daily back-ups, server cost, etc, so have made the following necessary changes to avoid increasing prices, introducing dreaded third-party advertising or closing the site down altogether.
The standard advert cost of £8.99 will remain unchanged, but the following changes have been applied to free adverts to protect the NFED's future.
We have removed the free offer for all animals & poultry (offered or wanted) & off topic items regardless of value. The maximum free ad value is unchanged at £174.99 but multiple items with a total value of £175 or more will no longer qualify for free ads.
This is an equestrian site, we can no longer cover the cost of these unrelated adverts & it would be grossly unfair to pass the cost of unrelated ads on to our equestrian advertiser base.
There are numerous ways to advertise non-equestrian items, but only one NFED, hopefully those that appreciate the NFED will fully respect & understand this decision.
Further Details...
Livestock, Pets & PoultryAll livestock (offered or wanted) including small animals, pets, poultry or waterfowl (inc' hatching eggs) are now excluded from the free ads offer, regardless of type, breed or value. The free ads were never intended for professional small animal/poultry breeders, but the number of breeders now using the site & the number of ads being posted has made this completely unsustainable & over shadowing the paid equestrian ads.
Charging for the ads will greatly reduce the number of ads, but still provide the service for those prepared to pay, whilst providing verified seller details to comply with the 2018 Animal Welfare Act.
Multiple ItemsMultiple items in a single advert have always caused confusion, so to simplify everything, the total value will now be taken into account.
Multiple items in one advert up to £174.99 will still be free, £175 or over will require payment.
This should still allow people to advertise their unwanted low value tack, horse & rider wear, tools or equipment completely free of charge, which is exactly what the free ads are intended to do. If the total value exceeds £174.99 in a single advert, simply split items into further adverts. The maximum of 15 free ads in 30 days should be sufficient for all normal use.
Off Topic ItemsWe are getting quite a few house clearance, fashion & random items, toys, etc, driving down the equestrian ads. The NFED is intended as an equestrian & countryside website, therefore off topic adverts will no longer be included in the free ads offer. The free ads will remain for equestrian, agricultural, small holding & countryside items only, up to a maximum of £174.99
Removing off topic ads from the free ads offer will save resources, whilst uncluttering the classifieds & helping us to focus on the intended equestrian ads. The miscellaneous category will remain in place for the adverts that do not fit the other categories.
Regular Unpaid AdsIf an advertiser regularly submits adverts that require payment & does not pay, the adverts will be removed without waiting the two days. The cost of backing-up the server depends on the amount of data, so unpaid ads cost us money. If payment is received, the advert will be replaced.
We take the safety of NFED users very seriously. Visitor IP addresses are validated using ProxyCheck & enquiries sent through our system are monitored for suspicious activity.
VPNs, Proxy servers which are used to hide visitor's actual IP addresses & favoured by scammers & fraudsters are blocked.
iCloud Private Relay is a VPN service which can be activated on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, once activated you will be blocked from some sites including the NFED.
Turn Off Private Relay
On your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you can turn off iCloud Private Relay in Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Private Relay. On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Apple ID. Select iCloud > Private Relay.
See: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212614 for further details.
