
BangorCruise was started
in 2001 by Alan Caughey, originally planned as a coursework project
for his degree. Originally it was a free forum, meaning it was plagued
with pop-ups and advertisements. From the day it was launched it seemed
to immediately attract like minded people to the site, so after a short
period,
the first Bangorcruise 'site' was launched incorporating galleries, feature
cars, members cars and, of course, the forum, which now was free of pop-ups
and a lot more user-friendly. Bangor was and has always been considered
the "Home
of Sunday night cruising" as it has been running for many years
longer than most people can remember, so once there was a website to
document
all that went on both in Bangor and around the province, the member numbers
soared.
The site had been running under its own steam for 2 years, members had come
and gone, but the site was growing in strength and popularity, so it was time
for another revamp. Alan built a whole new site (at the sacrifice of the member
database) bringing a fresh look to Bangorcruise and the beginning to what most
people recognise as Bangorcruise today. During this time BC was still displaying
some of the best cars available at shows, and Sunday nights in Bangor getting
bigger and better, and covering all there was to do with cruising around Ireland.
With the impending departure of Alan in 2004, he handed over the reins to
Stuarty, the man responsible for where the site is today. Stuarty ran the site
with no problems until a server crash caused us to lose all our members again.
We were back to square one.
At this time, Alan was still working on the site whenever he could get a free
minute away from his work placement in Scotland, although it was starting to
prove difficult, and Alan was slowly being pulled away from the site. One of
the remaining moderators from the later stages of Alan's 'reign', Rocko, contacted
Alan about buying the site, and a few days later, the deal was done. BangorCruise
now belonged to Rocko and Stuarty and they had big ideas.
Instead of leaving the site to diminish Stuarty decided it was time to rebuild
a better BangorCruise.co.uk, and with the help of programmers and graphic designers
set about doing just that. A few minor upgrades later, the site was almost
ready to go but constant coding issues seemed to keep delaying the site even
further so it was decided that just a forum would be set up to at least give
the members somewhere to chat and get information about shows/cruises.
In 2005, Stuarty arranged for BangorCruise.co.uk to hold its own show in Bangor.
This was Cruise Control and what a day it was. With backing from the local
council, the PSNI and the Road Trauma Support, we managed to put on a show
highly regarded by many as one of the shows of the year. But most importantly
we raised over £1000 for the selected charity.
Now well into 2006, the site has over 1200 members, Bangor is still regarded
as the only place to be on a Sunday night in the cruise scene, and our show
stands still dwarf some of the bigger sites. The site at the minute is still
just a forum, but with Stuarty, Rocko, Saywhat and the rest of the staff working
tirelessly on the site, it wont be long until BangorCruise is one of the top
sites in Ireland once again.
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