We'll meet again (friendsreunited.co.uk)

Member Name: Karenwilson

Product:	friendsreunited.co.uk
Date:	21/08/01 (207 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Meet up with long lost friends

Disadvantages: None

I expect by now that you have read many an opinion on this site. Well all I want to do is persuade the people who have not had a look yet to go and have a nosy round.

I recently went to a school reunion and met up with a load of old friends. It was a great evening out and it was held at our old school, so we could wander around all the classrooms reminiscing. There I was pretending to be a grouchy teacher at the front of the class and making my group of 30-year-olds sit down and be quiet and look at the board. Obviously a few drinks had passed my lips by then and it did seem funny at the time. At the end of the evening a few people exchanged telephone numbers. I however was eager to carry on enjoying myself and got a crowd of us to go into town for a few more drinks. Unfortunately by the end of the evening we had all split up and gone our separate ways again.

The next day however I felt a little sad (and hungover) as I did not exchange telephone numbers with some good friends that I had met up with again. We did have such fun together that evening catching up on old times and finding out what we were all currently doing in our lives. Our friendships seemed to carry on from where it had left off so many years before.

You can imagine how happy I was when I read an opinion about contacting old school friends on a web site called www.friendsreunited.co.uk.

Let me tell you a bit about the site, it is really user friendly and believe me it must be if I can get around it. On the home page you have several categories to choose from.


** Your Details **

In this section you need to fill in all the membership fields listed:-
Name, Surname (as it was in your school years), your current surname, nickname at school (if any) and year of leaving. Don’t worry if you cannot remember this, there is a section that can work it out for you. Being a spring chicken I knew that it was only a few years ago!!
Okay so it was a while ago now but time does fly by when you are a busy mother of two.

Enter your e-mail address and then a password of your choice. In the “Notes” field you can write anything about yourself that others would find interesting, i.e. family, job, where you now live etc.

Once you have filled all this in you are a member. However to be able to contact friends via e-mail you have to enrol costing a yearly fee of £5. Their reasons for this are to stop any abusive nature taking place on the site. To charge a small fee of £5 would help to deter people that intend to ruin the site.


** Find your school **

This is the easiest way of locating your school. Just type in the school name in full or part of the name and it will take you to the school and all its former pupils are listed. The school also has a web site available.

Once you are in your school it has a list of members and which year that they left. You may find some names of people you went to school with and if so to read about them click on the notepad icon if available for that person. To email them click on the envelope and then type in your message and it will be sent to them via email and it is for them to write back if they wish to do so.


** Memory Board **

This can be filled in by all fully paid members and in here you can write about all your favourite memories and teachers. In this area you can also look up where famous people went to school. Each school has its own memory and message board and these can be quite interesting at times.


** Guest Book **

For members to leave comments and suggestions on ways of improving the site.


** Success Board **

Member’s success stories in contacting friends through the site and how they now keep in touch.


** Name Search **

Pretty self-explanatory really, just type in the initial of the fi
rst name and enter the surname in full.


** About Us **

This site holds information on all the current UK based secondary schools. If your old school closed down just inform them and they will enter the schools details in 2-3 working days.


** Privacy **

No contact details are given to members unless you give them yourself. Message boards are regularly checked for abusive and offensive messages.

Regular monthly newsletters can be received with a choice of four options to select from. I chose to be notified when a new member adds their details to my school.


** My experience **

Well I have been a member for a while on this site and last week I decided to pay the £5 full membership fee. I wanted to see how the site was progressing first, and now I see plenty of familiar names I would love to get in contact with. Only today an old friend of mine has just emailed me to make contact. I have not seen this person for over four years. So it will be nice to catch up on the gossip. I have only just emailed two friends so I will let you know how it all goes and if we all eventually meet up again.

*** Update ***

I have had replies to the emails that I sent to my old friends and I am now writing to them all daily to catch up on all the gossip. We are all now making arrangements to meet up in October and so far there is around twenty of us going. So I really cannot praise this site up enough. Go on give it a go you may find that you are hooked like I am.

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