Penny and Blue Boy have asked to leave the forum for good on 3rd September.

I personally wish them all the best for the future and am grateful to both of them for their contributions to the forum.

Many of you are asking why threads about them leaving have been deleted.

The reason is that both of these threads starting to drift way off the original topic and started to become personal attacks on me.

I agree that everyone is entitled to their opinions but I do not agree with personal attacks about me in a forum that I own.

Here is a summary:

1. Penny announced she was leaving.

2. Several people said they were sorry to hear that including me.

3. In my post I politely asked her on what date she wanted her forum account closing.

4. I received countless abuse back from other members saying that was not an appropriate thing to say.

5. I responded and said that we had a obligation to remove member personal data on their request under the Data Protection Act and was only acting accordingly.

6. This generated further personal abuse against me.

7. Penny then said she wasn't actually leaving and wanted to post from time to time.

8. I responded and said that was no problem and I was pleased to hear that.

9. More personal abuse came my way and I received several private messages from other members supporting me and saying they thought the thread should be deleted because it had simply turned into an attack against me.

9. I chose to delete the thread for this reason. It ended up being 30% Penny leaving and 70% attacking me.

10. Penny then posted another thread which was a direct personal attack against me and saying she was now leaving forever on 3rd September.

11. Blue Boy then posted a thread saying he was leaving too which then also became a personal attack and so I deleted it.

If anyone chooses to leave the forum forever or for a short time then that is their choosing but I don't think we need a thread each time a member is taking a break or leaving which then just turns into attacks on people.

The Childminding Chat area is for general chat about childminding. It's not for people to say they are leaving or for people to attack me or anyone else.

I have supported this forum for the last few years by being Pauline's largest advertiser and spent thousands of pounds in advertising to help keep the forum going.

I then spent a very significant amount of money buying the forum to ensure it's future and plan to spend more money improving it further for the members such as iimplementing the 'Like' button you all requested and also mobile apps for the iPhone and Andoid.

Running this forum is not cheap. It costs thousands of pounds per year.

Some people seem to really take the forum for granted. They perhaps don't appreciate the amount of work or money involved in keeping it going.

I have said several times the forum will always be free and that there are no plans to charge for it ever. This is my personal guarantee.

As the owner of the forum I do not believe I am god but I think it would nice to have a little respect from the members since it is because of my hard earned money and generosity that you are all able to use this platform to communicate with each other.

Please let's all calm down. The forum is supposed to be fun. and we should keep it that way.

Thanks for all the private messages of support I have received.

Richard