Ex Forum Admin

I have actually emailed Dotty about this.

Yes please - new sectionYes please - change Lighter-side sectionNo thanks

Copy of original post: My husband & I are both in our 40's & medically retired from the Civil Service. We have been passed from pillar to post trying to find out which forms we need for our medical cover, when we move to France in June. It turned out to be really simple - but getting the right person on the phone was a nightmare!! At last, I think we have got everything in place & thought the information may help someone in a similar situation to us. If your are unable to work and are receiving LONG TERM Incapacity Benefit the following will help with transfering benefit payments & receiving healthcare. When you apply to your local Benefits Branch to have your Long Term Incapacity Benefit paid into a French Bank Account you will be issued with a BF5 or BF5(NI) if you live in Northern Ireland. Once this form is returned, to your local office, it will be sent to the Head Office, for Medical Claims, in Newcastle. When Newcastle have processed your form they will send out an E121 to your new address in France, along with the details of your benefit & when the first payment will be made. For enquiries :- Pensions Branch in Newcastle - 0191 218 7777 The new number for Medical Claims in Newcastle - 0191 2181999 Hope this helps anyone who is struggling with the Social Security offices - as we must have phoned about 6 different offices, over the last month, before getting through to the right person to speak with.

That's the person who I was thinking of. He certainly does that sort of thing.

I have changed the title so it is shorter, this may help. James

Can you send it to me by email so I can take a look? Thanks  

  £99 per car + 4 passengers for a one way journey from the South of France to Calais departing 20th* or 27th** May 2006 Normal prices for a one way journey start from £400 one way for a car + 4 passengers For a hassle free way to travel back to the UK from the South of France, French Motorail is the answer. Put the car on the train, in a choice of 6 destinations - Brive, Toulouse, Narbonne, Avignon, Frejus/St Raphaël, Nice - and then travel in a private 4 or 6 berth couchette overnight to Calais. To book or for more information visit www.raileurope.co.uk or call Rail Europe on 08708 304 864 *20th May - departures available from Avignon, Frejus/St Raphaël, Nice **27th May - departures available from Brive, Toulouse, Narbonne, Avignon, Frejus/St Raphaël, Nice

Thanks for the info daryl-et-elaine - interesting. For all: Our websites do say on the terms and conditions pages: Contributions We are delighted to receive your contributions to our bulletin boards, chat rooms and the like but only on the basis that: you warrant to us that all such contributions are lawful and not obscene, offensive, defamatory or infringe any rights of any third party and that you will indemnify us in respect of any breach of that warranty;

[quote user="Dick Smith"]It may well do, but all the examples shown are at 72dpi! All these programs depend on interpolation algorithms, and interpolation can never put in elements of a picture that were never there in the first place. I would like to see an actual-pixels sample of that raccoon upped from 1Mp to 7Mp - I reckon it would look awful. And my first comment which started all of this was that you can't take a 200x200 72dpi website image and enhance it to a high-quality (7Mp+) half-page magazine ad. I've seen nothing that suggests anyone can do that. [/quote] I would like to see this package too....as far as I am aware such a package doesn't exist, if it does I would be interested in it for web to print publishing.  

Can you help three young, fit and brave young British men on their quest to cycle from Calais to Mont Blanc in just eight days, to raise funds for Cancer Research UK?   The three lads are hoping to keep costs down as much as possible to maximize their donations to charity, but to do so, they need the help of generous homeowners across France to give them a well-earned bed for the night.   Eddie Rixon, 28, from Thame, Tom Richardson, 27, from Watlington and Phil Scott-Priestley, 28, from Banbury will endeavour to complete this unique test of endurance that will take them through the dramatic landscape of the French Alps.    Their will begin the challenge in London where they will cycle to Kent and take the Eurostar to Calais.  Once in France they will journey the minor roads through Arras, Reims, Chaumont, Dole, Lons-Le-Saunier, Annecy and finally onto Chamonix-Mont Blanc.   The trio hopes to raise over £7,000 for Cancer Research UK in memory of family members who have died from cancer and inspired by Lance Armstrong’s fight against the disease. They set off the 22nd June and hope to complete the journey in eight days. If you can offer them somewhere to stay, or if you want to donate to their cause, please go online at www.justgiving.com/london2montblanc.  Donating is simple, fast and totally secure.  Alternatively please contact Eddie Rixon on [email protected] or call 07866 566 328.   If you would like to sponsor the trio you can do so by donating online at www.justgiving.com/london2montblanc.  Donating is simple, fast and totally secure.    E.J.Churchill Shooting Ground (of which the gentlemen are all members of) and their vehicle partner Toyota are generously supporting the young men with a Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon as the support car, which will be driven by the boys’ girlfriends to give them some extra encouragement should they need it!.    For further information about the cycle challenge please email [email protected] or call 07866 566 328  

No-one can see PM's unless they are sent them, receive them or someone has your login details...not even me as Admin.

Thanks David, I will depending on outcome and any agreements.

Let me make this clear. The forum is about Moving to and Living in France, I (as manager of the Archant France business websites) can tolerate some posts that are not about France (try and keep them in the lighter side). I understand that this is a meeting place for expats and people who are thinking of or in the process of moving to France who may want to keep in contact with one another, not just ask and answer questions. When I joined Archant two years ago there was a meeting about the future of the forum and whether it should be shut down. At the time it was a resource which although helpful for readers, took up more and more time and resource to keep going. It was at this point that I argued with higher management and fought to keep it. It was going to go. Community moderators were sought and helpful members volunteered to keep it alive. The moderators and members have kept the forum running up to now and the code of conduct was implemented so that members knew what they can and can't post about.. I've fought over the years to have software that was not Archant wide because it was better suited to what our members expected and fought to keep it un-moderated, so that messages appeared instantly instead of overnight. If the forum dilutes into a chat room about personal disputes, who did what etc then I will seriously look into it's future. It is up to the members to remember that this is a forum about France not friends reunited. It saddens me to think that new members are joining and not posting because of the current state of the posts. We have all worked hard to keep this forum going and I'm not about to (and I'm sure members will agree) let it become an online pub (although members are allowed a few drinks[;-)]). Some may think the code of conduct is strict, some may not, but it is there for a crucial reason. We have always tried to keep the flow going and not step in and delete posts willy-nilly, but sometimes it is going to happen. It might be that because of a business point of view, ie advertising (which effects advertising in our publications), it might be that I (or the moderators) feel the post was personal or inappropriate. As online publishers of this forum (Archant) we need to be careful. If we are seen to do nothing and the matter is taken further then it will be us as well as the perpetrator that gets into trouble. Some people seem to complain about censorship...of course there is censorship on this forum...it is treated legally as one of our publications (just an online one). There is no swearing (this forum can be seen by people of all ages). So please bear this in mind when you post. There isn’t any reason to worry about it closing as long as we all work together to keep it the best forum on France* *Noted that TF does rather well also.[:)]  

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I'm pleased to announce that 'Eslier' has joined the moderating team. [:)]

Sneak preview of the new look magazine (out next week) is located here in on line digital form.  

Hi Hastobe, Can you try again now please. James

[quote user="Val_2"]Sorry another question but why do I have suddenly delete,reply, quote and edit appear at the top of my postings, only reply and quote were ever there before. Admin - I don't understand computer language and words like caching and cookies mean nothing to me, perhaps you could explain.There isn't anything wrong with my machine as I can use all the other french type forums that are around with no problems today.[/quote] Hi Val. Caching means that the page you are viewing on the internet has been saved automatically on your computer (for quick viewing if you view it again). It helps the speed of your browsing. If your computer is looking at a page that was saved yesterday the posts since then will not show up. Cookies are a message file stored automatically on your machine and identify you. A message is then sent back to our server each time the browser requests a page from the forum. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users uniquely. If your computer is not accepting these cookies from our servers you will not be able to login correctly. As you seem to be able to login to the forum OK I would agree with Ron's explanation of how to potentially get rid of this 'caching' problem. Do you view the internet with Internet Explorer? If so go to the top menu, click on Tools then click 'internet options...' then 'delete files or 'delete offline content'. This will remove all the saved internet pages on your machine and force the computer to look for new pages.  Then on the same page go to 'settngs' and make sure that you are looking for new versions of stored pages "Automatically". Then close Internet Explorer or press control and F5 key at the same time in Internet Explorer. Let me know how you get on.  

Hi All, I havel moved this to the website forum section. The way the system is set up, the homepage only refreshes every 10 minutes, so the new posts will take 10 minutes to appear, they will however appear in 'active' and the subforms and threads themselves. This is to improve the performance as the system only has to look for new changes once every 10 mins rather than all the time. Hi Val, It sounds like it's some setting on your machine. It could be a caching problem, have you changed your internet settings? Are you accepting cookies from the site?

Sounds like it is far too big to upload. The avatars need to be 80 pixels x 80 pixels and in jpeg or gif format, so you willl need to reduce the size considerably.[:)]

Thanks,   Have moved it to French Language forum.     Best Regards, James

Of course. Send it to [email protected] [:)] Edit: Just to let you all know, the avatar can only be 80x80 pixels max.

Please reply by email or PM only due to the 'no advertising' rule on the forum. Thanks

If you send me your avatar I should be able to upload it for you. [:)]      

Hi,   When you compose your message you should see a drop down box called 'insert smiley'. James