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.