As you may have noticed Stand Up Paddle Surfing UK has undergone a face lift !

This means that we will be retiring this blog as the new website takes over.  In the mean time the archive will stay here. Here is our very own press release :

Over the winter, while we in the UK were being hit by storms and conditions too windy to stand up paddle surf in, Matt Argyle, the owner of http://www.supuk.org was busy designing a face lift for the website. Working with his graphic design and programming team, they have made the website live today.

The popularity of Stand Up Paddling in the UK has exploded, and this has been reflected in the number of unique visitors to http://www.supuk.org had risen from around 30-40 per day in November 2007 to over 1,500 per day in February 2008. Given this rise Matt felt that he needed to build a website that would be better able to handle the bigger visitor numbers and to have scope to increase the amount of contributors to the website.

Matt continues “Simon Bassett from 2XS is travelling to Maui in April and I asked him if he wanted to be a roving reporter for the website, he agreed, but I realised that I needed to create a website that would allow him to update it with the minimum hassle. I am travelling to the US soon as well and I wanted to be able to post features and reviews in internet cafes, so I don’t need to take my laptop, the platform for this website will enable me to do this”.

Matt runs a web design company and his experience told him that the open source system Joomla! would be perfect for the launch. Allowing content editors, around the world, to log in and publish content to the site with no software needed other than an internet connection and a web browser.

Matt continues “I think that stand up paddle surfing is the first water sport to be “born” in the internet age, people now expect information to be available immediately and they want to join an online community to ask questions and help others. I hope that Stand Up Paddle Surfing UK will be able to provide this service for stand up paddle surfers in the UK and all over the world”.