Naughty club's new leaf (geocities.com/scots45plusclub/)

Member Name: Humbug

Product:	geocities.com/scots45plusclub/
Date:	04/12/01 (195 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Personal contacts for mature folk, Sincere club owner, It's totally free

Disadvantages: Not a lot of members - yet, Club had naughty beginnings

THE SCOTS 45 PLUS CLUB

Oh, I'm into this! Going to put my teeth in, charge up the zimmer and go grab me a granny!

On the Ist of December, I was busy chatting to my cronies in a Yahoo Chat Scotland room, when this person came in with the handle 'scots45plusclub', said 'Good evening ladies & gentlemen - check our profile' waited a few minutes and then buggered off!

I was intrigued by the handle, because I had visited a webpage before with the same title and found it was an adult site. It sounded ok to me, although I didn't join (honest!). I had intended to join it one day and find out as much as I could, so it was already bookmarked and I was going to review it on dooyoo, but it turned out that dooyoo are dithering about naughty links anyway.

I had clicked his profile just before he did his disappearing act. The profile showed a photo of some obscure castle with the words 'Scots 45 Plus Club' printed over it in pretty colours.

The message on the profile read, "This is a private FREE club for adults over 45 who reside in Scotland and who are looking for friendship and more."

I thought, 'Aha! it IS a naughty club!', so (purely for the purposes of good journalistic investigation, you understand), I decided to click on the link provided, which was the same as the link I had bookmarked a few months ago.

It loaded quickly enough, one of those GeoCities free webpages with the pop-up advertising. Surprisingly, GeoCities are quite thoughtful and only put their advertising on the top right-hand corner. It was completely different from what I remember of the original webpage. I found that it was designed well enough for me not to have to close the pop-up ad, although I don't know if that was an intentional design consideration by the 'webmaster' - and I use that title loosely.

Although it looked pretty enough, (I do like the logo with the blue an
d yellow letters) the page was obviously under construction and had just started, the date shown on the page as the 1st of December 2001, the same day he popped into Yahoo Chat.

A scolling text message went from right to left, informing me of what the webmaster had added. What earthly use was that to me? I hate scrolling messages just as much as I hate flashing banners and pop-up ads. But, I digress...

The purpose of the Club was clearly written and I was impressed by the webmaster's well thought out ideas on how he was going to run it. The webmaster calls himself 'The Matchmaker', not very original, but hey, there's no law against it.

So here is what the club is all about...

* First of all, it is NOT an adult swingers club any more - that was very clearly pointed out in bold lettering. (I bet you thought I'd leave at this point?).

I later found out why the club had changed direction.

* There are only two rules for joining - you must be over 45 and live in Scotland.

* The club is 100% free.

* No adverts are placed on the webpage.

* The main part of the Scots 45 Plus Club is actually its magazine, which is sent to members in the form of an HTML file.


THE MAGAZINE

This is what I think makes this personal ad site unique. The rules for the magazine are as follows...

* The member chooses any handle he/she wishes.

* Photographs are optional.

* Members' e-mail addresses are NOT shown.

* Telephone numbers or URLs are not allowed in the advert. This is not mentioned on the webpage, but I found out later.

* Only the member's number, handle, location, age and personal ad is shown.

Now here's the clever bit...

Let's pretend that you are a member and you are stunned by the rugged good looks of that handsome hunk Humbug and you spot my fizzog in the magazine, you simply
e-mail The Matchmaker, let him know my name and number and that you want me. The Matchmaker then gets in touch with me by e-mail, tells me the numbers of all the members that find me adorable, I then look up my copy of the magazine, e-mail back the Matchmaker and say, 'The Man from Del Glasgow - he say 'Yes!''.

The Matchmaker acts as a mediator in all this, the members can either decide to communicate further through e-mail, or via The Matchmaker.

I had to find out more, so I filled in the registraton form, which is a CGI program run by FreedBack - basically it let's The Matchmaker create a registration form, once the applicant fills it in and clicks it, the form is sent to The Matchmaker and the applicant is shown another page with lots of ads. No big deal.

The Matchmaker had laid out the registration form quite well, taking advantage of the pull-down menus and radio buttons, etc. The form wasn't too long and had very easy instructions on what exactly to enter into the blank spaces. It was soon winging its' way to the Club.

About 5 hours later, I got a confirmation reply from The Matchmaker, saying that he'd be contacting me soon and that the Club had just started and to be patient.


WHO IS 'THE MATCHMAKER'?

I decided to write back to The Matchmaker and see if he would tell me more about the Scots 45 Plus Club.

It is very much a one-man-show run by a chap called Paul. He was very friendly and answered all my questions. I was impressed by the fact that he sent me his mobile phone number, inviting me to give him a call.

We had chatted on the phone and decided to meet. We sent each other's photos by e-mail and agreed to meet earlier today (the 3rd of December) to have a drink or three in a bar. (turned out it was a gay bar, but neither of us knew - well at least I didn't).

Paul said he'd meet me at a pub near Queen Street Station.
I arrived on time, but he was already there. He is 48, quite a big lad - well I wouldn't like to steal his 'jeely piece', (that's the Glasgow definition for a jam sandwich). I liked him right away because he was a Glasgow man, brought up in Bridgeton and he was quite knowledgeable about Glasgow history.

Paul was quite open about why he had started the club. One of the reasons he said, was that he wanted to learn how to design webpages, set up a database for the members and to use e-mail effectively. I said, "Don't give up your day job", and as soon at it left my lips, I wished I hadn't said it. Paul was obviously hurt by this and he mumbled that he thought he was doing well. It was an awkward moment and I apologised for my fat mouth. He gave a lovely smile and carried on talking enthusiastically about his beloved club.

In an attempt to trip him up, I had congratulated Paul on the fact that it wasn't a swingers site for mature adults - but he replied that the club had originally started out that way. At least he was being honest.

The original Scots 45 Plus Club had about 50 members, Paul used the handle 'The Matchmaker' again and had tried to introduce like-minded adults together, based on their profiles and location, etc. Photographs were more 'revealing'. All the introductions were done through e-mails.

Paul said that he had to close the club because of timewasters and 'pic collectors'. Also, he was getting a bit paranoid about the media - why, I don't know.

He said that a lot of people who had contacted the club, only wanted to meet new friends or find romance and they were so disappointed when Paul explained the nature of the old club. So he decided to clean up his act and start again.

He is struggling, because he cannot place his banner on the usual swingers sites and has to use other means. Most of the UK personals pages are 'naughty'
;. He realises it will take some time for membership to build up and he will have to find a way to keep the first few members interest alive for the club.

Paul has introduced a chatroom and has just set up a Yahoo Group. So even if mature men and women don't want to subscribe to the magazine, they can go to the Yahoo Group and place messages there if they prefer.

I had one or two more awkward questions for Paul.

I asked him if he took advantage of the fact that he was the first person to see the ads and so he could have 'first pick'?

He hung his head and in a quiet, but angry voice, he said, "A member of my old club accused me of doing that and I was really hurt by the suggestion. But how can I prove that I didn't or won't? I stand by my mission statement."

One last question - why did he REALLY start the Scots 45 Plus Club? I didn't buy his story about wanting to learn how to design webpages. He looked at me and smiled.

"I was in an adult chatroom one night and when I gave my a/s/l as '48/male/Glasgow' one chatter wrote back, 'Ah, a lonely old Scottish saddo with no hope of getting laid!' I decided to do something about it and to build a club exclusively for us 'lonely old Scottish saddos'.

We parted in good spirits (quite a few in fact) and I promised to do my bit and give his club a mention on here.

If you are Scottish and aged over 45, it's worth a look at least.

I'll leave the last word to Paul with his mission statement...


The Matchmaker's Mission Statement:

"To protect the anonymity of the Scots 45 Plus Club's members where possible and to be instrumental in bringing like-minded members together for friendship and companionship"

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