Chris, Ive had a question Ive been meaning to ask you for a long time, so I'll ask here on my own thread.
How did you become so involved in the Checkmate site being so far away? Seems like you always the news first.
I'm afraid the full answer to that question, would be a really long post.
The short answer is that it was really just a fluke of sorts.
Basically, before I started the Checkmate site, I had been involved with some other message boards in varying roles. So I was fairly familiar with how to set them up and administrate them. At the time I set up the Check site, which was back in 2002, message boards were actually still a fairly new technology and they certainly weren't what they are today in terms of ease of use, or user features.
So basically, the simple answer is, I liked Checkmates, there wasn't a dedicated message board for them, so one afternoon sitting at my cottage kitchen table when it was pouring rain outside, I just started one.
It was really that simple.
I've had a few people ask me about the history of the forums over the years, so I put together this little bio/background on it, which is posted in the Checkmate Wiki.
Here's a link if you care to read more.
http://checkmate-boats.com/wiki/index.php/Community_Forums_Background_&_History
-Chris