Welcome to the new UKMS Blog. We're launching this as a part of the general re-vamp of the site.

When the UK Mat Surfers site first launched mat surfing was even further underground than it is today. At that point a handful of mat surfers around the UK were limited to occasional hook-ups and chance meetings. We are really proud to have played a part in developing a solid community of mat surfers thanks to the forum and the early mat meets, starting with that first one at Polly Joke in minute surf in 2009.

As time has gone on, mat surfing has become considerably better established. These days, sniggers are all but gone and it's increasingly rare to hear someone ask "what's that thing?" This growth has coincided with an ongoing expanse in social media with people from all over the UK, Europe and beyond finding mats and finding each other all over the net.

What has this meant? Well, for one thing people are interacting with UK Mat Surfers much more, via a huge array of different media. It also means that our poor old forum has kinda become redundant, with a noticeable drop off in traffic, apart from two important functions: sharing stories and news about matting and arranging hook-ups.

So back to these changes. The aim is to replace the forum. The forum will still be there to read but we'll close it to new posts soon. We have replaced it with two new resources:

The first is the Hook-Ups & Sessions page. Every Friday, a post will be put up for the following week for people to post their plans and to arrange hook-ups. We're using Disqus so log-in is super convenient for everyone. Oh, and it has what is quite possibly to coolest forecasting tool you'll ever see from Windyty. Seriously, have a good play with it. You can zoom in and out and drag it to wherever you want in the World!

The second change is this Blog. We really want to see this become a place for mat surfers from all over the globe to publish interesting articles. By doing this on the Blog, articles will have more permanence than on Social Media platforms. We will then disseminate them via our own Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts. We've noticed that some really good content is posted and then basically disappears on sites like Facebook. Publishing that stuff here and then sharing through the social media pipes will help to keep those articles alive and well archived. Again, we have included Disqus for people to offer feedback and chat about articles.

We really hope people get on board with these developments. We hope they will help to keep the site relevant and encourage more interaction from the growing number of mat surfers around the globe. If you have stuff to share then please take a look at the Author's Guidelines and get in touch.

Thanks!

UKMS Admin