About Us >> About the Website >> The History of the our Communication with members
The History of the our Communication with members
 The First Timetable |
The first Dipsomania Society Pubcrawl was planned by Co-Founders Stu & Dom, and the timetable for the event was printed on a side of A4 paper, in a very amateur fashion. For communication (as these were days before non-yuppies owned mobile phones) we left a copy of the Timetable next to the phone in Stu's house, and we left his grandparents with the instructions that they were to advise any callers who had missed the 13:00 meet-up at the Nelson as to where we were scheduled to be.
THE BEGINNINGS
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THE INTERMEDIARY TIMESAs the days, months & years rolled by the Dipsomania Society became computerised: Dipso Dom had a list of members' addresses on his PC & would periodically send out letters with timetables, via the Royal Mail. When members arrived at the Pubcrawl, rather than being handed a sheet of A4 with a list of pubs on it, they would be presented with souvenir guides, comprising the timetable and some additional information that the Dipsomania Society felt appropriate for inclusion (the Rolls of Honour & Stupor, Dipso Tunes, Pubcrawl Rules & Alcohol Information all have routes in those little guides). Our record guide was handed out for the Pubcrawl ofNovember 2001, and comprised 16 sides of information. We realised immediately how silly that was.
Later still the Dipsomania Society's infamous "Dipso Spam" list was compiled, and Dipso Dom would now notify all members as to upcoming events via email. The last Royal Mail Pubcrawl notification was sent out in August 2002, to the 20 or so members we had on our list at the time. Of course the guides continued as there was (as yet) nothing to replace them; they just continued in a less exuberant (and costly (in terms of both ink & time)) fashion.
 The Old (crap) Website |
This was essentially designed to be a dumping ground for the photos & logbooks from our Pubcrawls, and also somewhere we could include full details of upcoming events, meaning that our members could print the timetables off for themselves. This was the first time the Dipsomania Society could rely on its members to keep themselves advised as to what was going on with the society.
With occasional news updates & sections on the site dedicated to store & develop the funny items that had filled the Pubcrawl guides over the years, Dipso Dom ended up having to patch together 4 separate Geocities accounts (as each allowed but 15MB of information to be stored in them) and the whole thing became a lot more messy and time-consuming than he had initially hoped.
Also, while the website had proved a hit among the die-hard dipsos, it really had nothing to keep people coming back (apart from once a season to double-check the timetable & also every so often to laugh at the photos of drunken friends) or to draw any new visitors and/or members. Indeed, we had no way of knowing if a group of drunken frat boys from UCLA would descend upon our upcoming Pubcrawls, as we had no control over who was reading what.
It was at this point that Tittenfick Netzdesign famously offered their services in order to provide the Dipsomania Society with the best website of any pro-drinking organisation on the planet.
We could hardly say "no" to that.
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THE PRESENTIn August 2004 the all-new Dipsomania Society website officially went live & all members of the society were emailed with the notification that they must now apply for membership online in order to continue their membership. As this was close to an upcoming Pubcrawl, a final wave of manual Dipso Spam was issued, letting people know they would still be welcome to attend the event, even without signing up to the Website.
That email was sent to the 60 people on our list at the time.
With so many attractions (all the standard ones plus such things as pub reviews, frequent polls, quizzes & feedback forums) this new version of the Website quickly attracted many previous members, as well as some new blood for the society. We are immensely pleased with it, and are constantly grateful of the support of Tittenfick Netzdesign for that. Without their timely help Dipso Dom would have now had to add at least another free Geocities account to the Website & would probably be grey and balding.
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We are pleased to report that as at 04 November 2004, the Dipsomania Society membership has swollen to 80.
(While we do wish for the continued expansion of the society, we also hope that not everybody turns up to each pub during the same crawl, as a logistical disaster would surely ensue for the poor barstaff...)
NB As of 23 June 2005 there are 114 members, a swelling of 42.5% on November's figure. It is also now possible to keep track of the number of members at the top of the member profile page.