Muddy News

January Ski Trip - Over Half the Tickets Sold - Book Your Place Now!

If you fancy hitting the slopes next year, why not join us on our Muddy Ski/Snowboard Trip to Val d'Isere next January?

It is a week-long trip (Saturday 23rd to Saturday 30th January), flying out from Gatwick Airport, and is open to skiers and snowboarders of all abilities.

Tickets cost £695 and include:

- Return flight: Gatwick Airport - Grenoble
- Transfers to and from the chalet
- Chalet hotel accommodation in the centre of town (shared twin room)
- Breakfast, afternoon tea and a 3-course evening meal (6 nights only) with unlimited wine until coffee
- Wristband offering discount on ski/boot/board hire, ski/snowboard lessons and drink/food in selected bars and restaurants.
- 'Muddy' rugby shirt or polo shirt
- Month's post-event subscription to Muddy Matches

For more information and tickets, please click here .

Can't make the 23rd January?

We are thinking about organising another ski trip on the 20th March. Register your interest in this event by writing to us at events@muddymatches.co.uk and we will keep you posted.

An Update on Recent Website Issues

Please accept our apologies for any difficulties you might have had trying to access the site over the last two weeks.  These have been caused by two things:

1)    Muddy Matches has been growing so quickly lately that we were beginning to get close to outgrowing our server and have been working on upgrading to a new server that will cater for all our current needs and give us plenty of room for growth.  The move is planned to take place this week and we are currently testing the site on the new server to ensure we can make the switch with minimal interruption.  However, for the last two weeks we have received an unprecedented (and unexpected) amount of traffic on Wednesday nights after the programme Farmer Wants a Wife is aired and our server has not coped well with the sudden increase of users on the site in such a short space of time.  Unfortunately, this has meant that the website has been running very slowly for users on the last two Wednesday evenings.

2)    The second problem was unrelated and an unfortunate coincidence that, frustratingly, was completely out of our control.  On Thursday evening, our hosting company informed us that they had to perform an emergency upgrade to the software on the router having discovered a memory leak that was slowing website performance for all their clients in our particular cluster.  We were given just a few hours' notice and this caused the website to be unresponsive for a couple of hours that night.  On Friday morning, we were informed that everything had been resolved but, when our website became unresponsive again around lunchtime on Friday, they announced that the software upgrade had not worked as planned and that they would have to do further work that would keep our website down for the rest of the day.  On Saturday morning we were finally given the all-clear and we do not seem to have had any other problems since then.

We appreciate that it is really frustrating when you cannot access the site and we are really sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused you.  Please be assured that we are doing everything we can to get the website moved to our new server as quickly, and with as little interruption, as possible.  Once we are satisfied that everything is working as it should be on the new server, we will be compensating any members who held a subscription over the time we experienced these problems by extending their subscription by the number of days that have been affected by any connectivity issue.

Once again, please accept our sincere apologies and we thank you for your patience in this matter.

Lucy & Emma

Muddy Matches is the best dating site...

...well according to some of our members anyway!

We love it when we get nice feedback about the site and today has been a really good morning with lots of lovely emails popping in, including the following three comments which seemed to have a similar theme:

"I have to say that [Muddy Matches] is without doubt the best dating site I have ever seen/been on.  From a personal point of view, the guys who are on there are far nicer and more genuine than people I came accross on some of the larger sites."  Kate

"The site is the best in the country.  And I will promote when and where ever."  Peter

"This is the BEST internet dating site .. BRAVO .."  Kate (a different one :-) )

We love hearing from you, particularly when you write to let us know you have met someone.  In fact, our Success Stories page is getting bigger and bigger and, in August alone, five people wrote to us to say that they were getting married to someone they had met on Muddy Matches.  Click here to look at our wedding-related success stories.

Declined cards (07/09/2009) between 7.30pm and 11pm

We are very sorry if you tried to make a payment last night (07/09/2009) between 7.30pm and 11pm as all card payments were being declined, due to an issue with our payment provider. This problem has been rectified and you can now pay as normal. If your card was declined please try again today, We are very sorry for the inconvenience.

Cork Races - Last Chance to Get Tickets!

The deadline for buying tickets for our Day at Cork Races this Saturday is 9am on Thursday 20th as that is when we must let the venue know final numbers.  If you haven’t bought your ticket yet and fancy joining a group of like-minded 'muddy' people for all the fun, excitement, colour and craic that is a day at the races in Ireland, get online and book your place now*.

Tickets cost £70 (or 80 Euros) and include premium-level admission, your race card, lunch, a private room (with full cash bar, tote facilities and viewing balcony overlooking the track) and a week’s post-event subscription to Muddy Matches.

*Unfortunately, we cannot accept online payments using Irish laser cards.  If you cannot pay online, please email us at events@muddymatches.co.uk or ring us on 0044(0)1933 311500.

For more information and online bookings, please click here.  Hope to see you there!

Gossip from the 2009 CLA Game Fair

We had an amazing three days at the CLA Game Fair this year and were delighted to meet so many of you at the show.

The highlight for us was the Saturday, the show's busiest day.  Despite some dubious weather reports, the sun shone throughout and we had an action-packed day on the stand, with lots of members (past, present and future) coming to say hello and every spare corner of the stand taken up by people for our wine tasting in the afternoon.  Our lunch in the Members Enclosure and the clay shooting session on the Clay Line also went really well.

However, the main event for us was our tongue-in-cheek dating show in the Game Fair Theatre at 4.30pm.  Presented by Apprentice finalist Claire Young, the show saw 10 country-minded contestants vying for the attention of our male and female 'pickers'...as usual there was plenty of cheeky banter!

The pickers were asked to choose one person to accompany them on a date and the two couples were then whisked off for a romantic picnic in Belvoir Castle's stunning rose garden.

One of the nicest things was that, over the three days, we counted more than 30 couples who came up to us to say that they had met each other on the site or at one of our events.  We all work really hard so it makes our day when we get to see people happily matched up.

Charles and Sophie met on the site in October 2008 and came to say hi - we think they make a great couple!

If you are still waiting to meet the right person, you'll be pleased to know that more than 600 people have registered on the site in the last week alone so why not head over to the Newest Members section (under the Search tab) and say hello!

Muddy Matches Success Stories

Hooray, hooray...another muddy engagement has just been announced so when better to introduce you to our new Success Stories page.  Click here to take a look.

Shamus and Ali (photographed on our stand at last year's CLA Game Fair) have just got engaged - read all about it on our Success Stories page.

Get your Game Fair tickets!

The CLA Game Fair (24th-26th July) is rapidly approaching and tickets for our social events at the show have been selling fast.

Meeting New People

With thousands of like-minded country people in one place (over 150,000 attended at Blenheim last year) it’s an amazing opportunity to get to know some new people who share your interest in the countryside…but we all know that sometimes it isn’t that easy! You might regularly go to the Game Fair with friends but find that more and more of them are in couples and you rarely get to meet anyone new; you may be finding it hard to get your friends to commit to going this year but not want to go on your own; or you may have never been before and are slightly hesitant as you don’t know what to expect. Don’t worry - this is where we come in...

‘Muddy’ Social Events at the Game Fair

We’ve got an action-packed couple of days lined up and plan to make our stand a social hub for all like-minded muddies to meet new people and experience the Game Fair together. If you did decide to come on your own, or to try the Game Fair for the first time, there will be no shortage of fun things to do or people to do them with. Here’s what we’ve got going on:

Lunch - join a gang of like-minded country people for a delicious buffet in the CLA Members’ Enclosure. Friday, Saturday and Sunday – tickets available on our events page.

Wine tasting - come to our stand to taste a number of Jakob Gerhardt Fine Wines and mingle with a group of like-minded muddies. Friday, Saturday and Sunday – tickets available on our events page.

Clay Shooting - join a group of muddy people to hit some clays in the Members’ Area on the Clay Line. All equipment provided and no experience necessary. Friday, Saturday and Sunday – tickets available on our events page.

4x4 Course - join our group for this exciting opportunity to experience 4x4 driving over rough terrain. Qualified instructors on hand to ensure that everyone has a go and enjoys this fun off-road experience. Friday only – tickets available on our events page.

Displays And Demonstrations - experience other aspects of the Game Fair with like-minded people. We’ll be arranging for people to meet at our stand to go and watch various displays and demonstrations together. Visit our stand in the morning to see our timetable. Friday, Saturday and Sunday - free.

Our Stand - come and have a natter and a glass of delicious Belvoir Cordial on our stand – we’ve got straw bales to perch on and fun garden games to keep you amused…who knows who you might get chatting to? Friday, Saturday and Sunday – free.

For more information about any of these social events, please click here or get in touch with us on 01933 311500.

We hope to see you there!

Having trouble upgrading your account?

There seems to be some kind of temporary glitch affecting some accounts that means that when you try to upgrade your membership using the online card transaction it is taking you to the homepage rather than the payment page. 

Please accept our apologies if this has affected you; we are looking into it right now and will hopefully get to the bottom of the problem very soon.

In the meantime, the problem can be temporarily solved from your own machine by deleting your cookies.

If you are having trouble with this, please get in touch with us at customercare@muddymatches.co.uk.

Additional Sailing Events

Incredibly, our May Bank Holiday Sailing Trip sold out in less than 24 hours and many people were left disappointed.  We are, therefore, delighted to announce two new summer sailing dates so we can get a few more of you out on the water:

• Long Weekend Sailing Trip (Thurs 4th - Sun 7th June 2009) - click here for more information.

• Bank Holiday Sailing Trip (Fri 28th - Mon 31st August 2009) - click here for more information.

 General information

For both events, you will meet Stuart, our professional skipper, at the Ocean Village marina in Southampton before heading off for three days' sailing in the Solent. Depending on the weather and what the group wishes to do, you may also do a Channel crossing.

The yacht will be sailed by Stu and his ‘mate’, but you will be encouraged to take part in all aspects of sailing including helming, winching and tacking. Or, if preferred, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride.

All your food and some alcoholic drinks will be provided on board but there will be a number of opportunities to go ashore for a few drinks after a good day's sailing.

 Who can come?

Anyone. You do not need any sailing experience to come along as you will be given the necessary training over the weekend and Stu our qualified skipper and his ‘mate’ will be on hand to make sure that everyone sails safely and has fun.

Tickets

The cost of the each long weekend is £425, which includes:

- Three nights' accommodation (shared cabin)
- All food on board, plus soft drinks and a limited amount of alcohol
- Professional skipper
- Sail training
- Lifejackets, oil skins and all safety equipment

For more information and tickets, please click here.