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Five years and going strong. A short history

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daytime dave
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Five years and going strong. A short history

Post by daytime dave » Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:50 pm

This forum has been around five years now in it's present form. If any of you are interested, I will write down how we got to where we are. If you aren't interested, you can stop reading at anytime.

It all started when my son was attending SUNY Potsdam. It was his freshman or sophomore year. I went for a visit, a rare occasion to be sure. On the way home I stopped into a local chain store that sold firearms in two of it's locations. As I entered, a woman handed me a coupon for $75.00 off anything in the store. At the firearms counter I asked to see a Henry GoldenBoy .22 lr rifle. It was a beautiful rifle. I'll take it. As the counterman walked it to the front register with me, I had my coupon ready. There, they had another coupon. I got $150.00 off that rifle. The chain ultimately went under a few years later.
When I got home, I couldn't believe how nice this GoldenBoy rifle was. I wanted to know more and I went online to look up this Henry Repeating 'Arms company. It lead me to Henryrifles.org. If I got the name wrong, it has been a while. That site was a wonderful place full of friendly people exchanging information about firearms and many other topics. (Sound familiar) I lurked more than contributing, all the while learning more about these wonderful rifles. I began to acquire a few more, constantly impressed with the quality. All of a sudden, the site was gone. No where to be found.

About a year and a half later, I received an email from the owner of the site. It explained that he had been spammed and he was a one man operation. It took him that long to clean everything up and get the site back on it's feet. I returned, but sadly most did not. There are about a half dozen of us here who returned there and it kept going. Then a person began posting a LOT. He was 303Lithgow. He was a prolific poster. He had made a mare's leg before Henry had if I recall. We became friends and began posting more. You know him here as SirHenry. Gene had a lot of friends that wanted to join the .org site, but members had to be individually approved. The owner had made a co-administrator, but by the time we went looking for them, neither of them had visited the site in a very long time. I found the co-administrator at another site of our mutual interest. He was able to make Gene and I Super Moderators, but we still weren't able to add members. Finally, I located the owner and he made us co-administrators. Gene and I took care of the .org site and learned how to run the site. We added members and things were going smoothly............. In February 2016, the .org site vanished again. What to do?

Gene and I decided to let it ride while we emailed each other. We both had things going on.

We decided that if I built it, Gene would post to it. OK, that was the plan. I didn't know anything about making a website, but I would soon learn. On Friday, March 18th, I launched the first iteration of Henryrifleforums.com. Many of you joined. We were up and running and I was trying to add things like a favicon, photos in the forum sections and other small items. I am certainly not a computer expert. I found I needed to open the forums brain and tinker, much like repairing an engine while it's running. I screwed the whole thing up so bad, but that's ok, a call to the web host would resolve everything. Oh, you needed to buy backup for the site? No, I didn't. How long have I been running it? Since Friday, why don't I just nuke it and start over? So, that's what I did. I modeled this site after the .org site as much as possible. Sunday night, March 20th, 2016 at 10:27 pm I started over after nuking the first version. I no longer open the brain. I pay someone who knows what they are doing when absolutely necessary. So here we are, just shy of March 20th, 2021. I don't know that much more about the making of a website. I have picked up a few things. If members want something added to the forums, we generally add it. We still approve each member by hand, but I have a robust and dedicated staff. We are here to keep the place nice and make everyone's experience positive.

If anyone is wondering, we are in no way related to Mr. Imperato. We don't receive any funding from Henry Repeating 'Arms. We do, on occasion receive prizes from them to give away. We have also given away other prizes from donations. Our towel sales only covered the cost of the towels and delivery. SirHenry and I will not monetize the site. There won't be commercials and the site is not for sale. We have rules that are common sense. They seldom need enforcing. We are a rare place in the internet, an oasis.

I used to love to sit in the lounge and talk with friends, old and new. Now, it's a rare privilege. I spend more time in the back room making sure things are running smoothly and doing administrative things. We have a lot of friends to make the place enjoyable and as I look back over the last five years I'm very glad we were able to do what we did. I'm glad that when someone else buys a new Henry rifle and sees the quality that I did, they can go to the internet and stumble onto this site. Hopefully they will be just as glad to be here as with the choice of their new Henry!

'
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Some days I'm Andy, most days I'm Barney........
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Sir Henry
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Re: Five years and going strong. A short history

Post by Sir Henry » Tue Mar 16, 2021 3:59 pm

That is the way I remember it also. Some of the people here I’ve know from the Ruger and gunner forums and go back to 2008. So this is the third major ammo shortage some of us have gone through together.

The first 100 members to join are Founding Members and their forum names are in orange. Near the bottom of the homepage is a list of members that have been on in the last 24 hours. About a third are founding members.

I think that says a lot about who we are as a family and what keeps us together.
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Hi, my name is Gene and I'm a Henryholic from Wisconsin.

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markiver54
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Re: Five years and going strong. A short history

Post by markiver54 » Wed Mar 17, 2021 10:52 am

Thank you Dave!
I enjoyed reading the founding story. Really appreciate what you and Gene have done! I enjoy this forum immensely, and hope it out lasts me.
It represents fun times every day when I log in and out.
Seems like once out of school, friends have become few and gone their own ways. Right here though, I have a ton of friends that I relate to. They will even help lift you when you're down and provide emotional support if you need it. Reminds me of all the support I got when I quit smoking , almost two years ago. It doesn't have to be about guns only....What a great bunch....thanks again!!
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