It was late summer of 2005 Dave just couldn't take care of the site anymore and made the decision to let it go. I saw his ad and checked out the site, and immediately thought the place needed more color. (
This is the template it was using, with a brown logo... I saved the logo somewhere, but can't find it now.) It was also slow as molasses! Dave didn't want to turn it over to just anyone though, he didn't want some interloper to plaster ads everywhere or wreck the community.
At first I struggled with the notion of taking over the site, thinking "What could I possibly offer them? I'm not a clown!" I'd had several surgeries as a child and been entertained by hospital clowns, but didn't really know much about them until I later made friends with a clown (who was also a patient at that time) during another hospital stay when I was an adult. I didn't feel that was enough exposure to the world of clowning to run a web site about it. But I kept thinking about lonely little Clown Forum, how I could improve the site, and how much
fun it would be to have a forum full of clown friends. After a few days I remembered my friend telling me that I was a clown at heart even though I couldn't express it physically. He thought of clowning as a philosophy and a way of life, not just a profession. So I finally contacted Dave and convinced him I was the right person for the job.
We had a few anxious moments at first, what with server problems and the loss of 20 days' worth of posts (Dave had forgotten to make a backup), but I got things running smoothly on a new server once I trashed the old software and template. I had a wonderful artist named Nathalie draw the new logo and smileys (if anyone wants to hire her I'll put you in touch, she does wonderful illustrations at very reasonable prices). SaphireSue, Scruffy, Jamz and the others helped out by answering all the clowning questions, exhorting others to post, and telling their friends to drop by. And all that hard work has borne fruit; I'm really proud of the way the forum has grown and developed. It's more than just a web site; it's a true community.
