)- quite the emotional farewell, Brandon!Your dedication to the Bygone Era is - and has been since it was first founded - outstanding. I have never met someone in my life that is so exceptionally dedicated to one particular thing of interest, and I'm sure most of North East Buses' members could say the same thing. It is because of just that why the Bygone Era has a staggeringly high amount of content which has already been uploaded, with thousands of more documents to come still. If I look at just one thread in the Bygone Era, I can find something which interests me - that is just marvellous.
I often look at you as "the admin of the past" as you are so dedicated to growing the Bygone Era. I look at Liam as "the admin of the future" because he is dedicated to producing the various features we all come up with to give me ("the admin of the present") a job - monitoring/contributing towards all of the features we have about events today. Quite the grand trio, if I do say so myself!
I am still dedicated to my wish of wanting to host timetables from "the big three" from when they start, until they end - following them through every service change, timetable format change and (hopefully) vehicle upgrade throughout the process. This will help in discussion and debate on the "Local Bus Scene" sub-forums, in various topics of conversation which often has a mention of the past. In your absence, I hope to make a start on this. It will obviously be a side project, working alongside my main projects (the maintenance of fleet news/fleet lists). I really do hope to keep in touch with you via text so that we can occasionally discuss the Bygone Era, and we'll hopefully be able to upload some content from before this millennium in addition to the above that I have proposed! I guess I can merge one or two of the aforementioned administrative roles, eh? :p
The Bygone Era's future is bright, and indeed this is the case for North East Buses in general too. With several "fresh faces" on the site's moderation panel, we hope that the every day running of the forum will not be affected massively in your absence (of course you are irreplaceable, so it will be affected a little!
). With every new moderator or administrator to the team has come an abundance of new ideas and things to improve the current site, and I'm sure we'll be acting on those from aureolin and tyresmoke soon. I am delighted to be a part of this community - we are extraordinarily different compared to the rest. We have 223 registered members on this forum, and in any other community, there would be major personality clashes and frequent arguments would occur. That just doesn't happen here on North East Buses; we have a friendly atmosphere with the occasional disagreement and debate, and this should be expected of all communities really. I really wouldn't have it any other way, and I feel privileged to be a part of the community (nevermind administration team) too.Today will (I best say hope instead - we all know what I'm like :p) mark the commencement of our Fleet News section. Another milestone will be crossed, and hopefully this will encourage more people to join our community and add another personality to the mix. A nav-bar link will be provided later in the day when the first report has been completed. The archive is not yet complete, but hopefully won't be too long after the first report has been completed that it will be done. We're going for a unique approach to all of these new features, delivering a completely new user experience. Anyone ready for one of my beasty update threads later today, requesting feedback? You all know one of those is inevitable!
Each and every person registered on this site is unique in their own way too. From the site's moderation/administration team to the members itself, it is a pleasure to be in a community with you all. To me, it is like a massive family. As cheesy as it sounds, it really is. Okay, maybe we're a "different" sort of family - I highly doubt most families have active debates about Fencehouses, shareholders and Quality Contracts, ey?! Jokes aside - everyone is so enthusiastic and every single person contributes (no matter how irregularly). I really do love NEB, and I see no dark clouds for the future - it can only get better from here.
Brandon, with regards to your departure: I really do hope it is only temporary, as much as I think it will be. Whether registered as "Brandon", "Fred", "Joe" or "Gertroot", as long as we have you back in one form or another, we'll all be happy. In the mean time, I wish you all the best in everything you do in the future - and best of luck to you with regards to having to get the Metro to work from next month as opposed to the 17