Believe it or not, today, December 9th, represents one year, to the day, since the Loamhedge Abbey Forum has been open (the forum was created on the 8th, but the first member registrations came in on the 9th).
It's been a long, interesting, and sometimes frustrating ;) ride.
It seemed that this forum would be a temporary stopgap measure to tide people over until the main forum was put back up. As the months have dragged on by, though, the hopes of that have dimmed. There's definitely been other challenges to the community's morale and spirit during this time; the election season in particular was hard for everyone. However, we have worked to adapt to our situation with persistence, making the best out of our perhaps less than ideal circumstances. With all of our time and contributions we now have developed an interest in this place, treating it like a new home, rather than the hotel it started out as.
It's impossible to say whether the old forum will return at this point, but if it doesn't, we have all together built the foundations of a new forum to outstrip its humble provisional origins.
While there have been real bonds made separately between us over the course of the past few years, we also all have a necessarily common bond in our association with Mr. Jacques' creative works. As such, the Staff have decided that this would be a great opportunity to hold a new week-long-or-so Avatar Switch event! Any characters from Mr. Jacques' works are welcome, from all of the Redwall series to his other book series, like Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, and Urso Brunov. Drop by your profile (http://www.loamhedgeabbey.com/index.php?action=profile;area=forumprofile) to change your avatar, and then hang out at the Loamhedge Day Thread (http://www.loamhedgeabbey.com/index.php?topic=1018) to tell us about who you picked, why you chose them, and your thoughts about our community and first year here.
Thanks so much for being a part of this community, and working together to make the dream of a revived Redwall forum possible.