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🎈🥂 It’s been 2 years since we launched our OVO Forum! 🍻🎉



Our community has grown and developed in that time, and we want to take a minute to recognise some of these changes, and the users that have played a key role in building something great!



Our community members:




  • @Transparent is our most active user, an elite superuser with over 800 comments! 👏My favorite posts from this user are in the Fun Friday Fact posts (example pic of their jam making below):









  • Our superuser @ITGeek123 has represented our community and has featured in several EV/energy related articles, such as the Telegraph's Going Green, and Moneywise, ✍️






  • So far in 2019, @Transparent @Slinky and @ITGeek123 are the most active users, with 210 comments between them! 🙌
  • Big thanks to our community manager @Darran_OVO and our moderators @Nancy_OVO @Eva_OVO @Lucy_OVO - we'll be seeing new moderators join in the coming months, Emily, Amy and Ed! 🤓🤓🤓



Growth in size and activity:



When you have great users visiting the forum regularly, sharing their knowledge and opinions and helping others, the community thrives. Compared to our first year, this year has seen:




  • An increase in forum visits by 115% 📈
  • The number of registered users increase by 75% 📈
  • The number of comments has increased by 155% 📈

This is worth a celebration, so we're going to extend the party.........in person! We're planning to invite some our most active and helpful users to our main Bristol office for a VIP day!!! It's still in the early planning stages, but we'll be coming back with more info on this in the coming weeks, as well as confirming which users will get the invite! 🏢 Think Willy Wonker and the golden tickets........!! 🏷️️



So in the spirit of keeping the celebration going, we'd love to hear from you, yes YOU! After all it's you guys that keep us going! We'd love to know what the last year has been like for you? Share your biggest story or main highlight below - we want to get to know our community users more, so what better time to start then our first party?! 🥇



Big thanks to each and every user, to our posters, commentators, to those that ‘like’ and those that just have a good read, we wouldn't be here, enjoying our 2nd birthday without our community users! 🎈
Here's progress on our birthday cake:





I'll get the ball rolling with my highlight of the last year - I had a great birthday party as I turned 30! My sisters secretly got me giant 3 and 0 balloons, and set up a projector showing old pictures of us as kids! Very embarrassing but great fun! 😣
Happy Birthday guys 🎂 Remind me not to drink the water in your area, you all look distinctly older than two!! LOL...😆
Happy Birthday guys 🎂 Remind me not to drink the water in your area, you all look distinctly older than two!! LOL...😆



😂



I 'hinted at' how old I was in the comment above @Slinky 👶🏻



What's the biggest story or main highlight for you over the last year?



#sharingiscaring
@Tim_OVO



Ah.., just a young chicken then 😉



The highlight of last year was receiving my mum's car as a gift which although made me very happy also made me very sad as she can no longer drive.



Of course I mustn't forget that I'm also nearing the end of my monitoring at the cancer hospital after having had cancer twice in 2014. I'm thankful I've come though it relatively unscathed except I now only have one kidney but I guess someone up there was looking out for me. I have one more visit later this year before I'm finally discharged, yey!! 😁



I hope these words don't detract from the main subject of OVO's 2nd Birthday but before I go if I may I'd like to offer these few words of wisdom...



I'm sure we all know someone affected by cancer, it will touch all our lives at some point. If anyone reading this is going through the same thing, don't give up, have faith in yourself and be brave and don't be afraid to ask for help, people sometimes don't know what to say to you but just having someone by your side is all that matters. There's plenty of support when needed and you never need feel alone. Cancer can take away many things but it can't take away our memories or our love for one another, it's those little things that will keep you strong.
Wow, amazing to think a little over 2 years ago, we were busy prepping to launch the forum, and see where our community took us and here we are 2 years later!!! And still going strong! 🏋🏼



The year on year development has been amazing, and we have all of you to thank for that.



Those of you that signed up in the early days and helped get us going, to those that have joined the ranks along the way and have really helped drive the community and grow it with us, and even those that didn't want/need to sign up, but pop by now and again to view whats going on and find answers to their questions, THANK YOU! 🎉



Thinking back over the last year, I guess one of my biggest highlights personally has been my health and fitness. It was never that bad, but I really pushed myself in 2018 and ended this last year, leaner and fitter and feeling so much better for it. I even took up running! Something I never thought I'd enjoy! Planning my first 10k soon, so I will keep you all posted on how that goes!! 🏃🏻



Keep sharing your highlights from the last year, we love reading them!!
Well said and thanks for sharing this @Slinky - big moment that for you, this last year and good to hear!



@Darran_OVO the running machine! 🤸



@ITGeek123 you've had a busy year, main highlight or biggest moment?
Great pic! Congrats on a fab 2 years!
To be honest I was hoping to get a slice of that cake sent through the post.



Congrats on the 2 years everyone! Here is to a very exciting 2019 😎
If there's going to be a party, may I just remind @Darran_OVO that he owes me two pints of real ale for historical faux pas he made!



And if you're busy planning a VIP Day, I'm sure some of us would love to meet those unsung heroes who work away in the background designing V2G Chargers, Home Batteries, Vcharge and related technologies 😀
I can't believe it's been 2 years already, time flies when you're having fun! 💃🏽



I have 2 highlights of last year -

💍 I got engaged and we're planning our 2020 wedding!

🏡 We also bought our first home - we're so excited to move in.



Here's to another exciting year 😝



What was your highlight, @PeterR1947?
@Eva_OVO



My highlight has to be my new Leaf which fortunately I haven't turned over yet, nor have any intention of doing so!



In April it will be two years old and I'll have done about 8,000 miles of rediculously cheap and silent motoring and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it (apart from a recent snow storm which blocked the radar sensor so I had to brake and steer for myself - hard work)



Now looking forward like @Darran_OVO to joining a new gym and getting rid of the flab that has appeared since my non attendance due to ill health 🙂
I'm a bit late to this party! Haven't been on the forum for a minute due to how busy we've been lately.



Happy 2nd birthday to the Forum indeed 🎉🍰🥂 Big thanks to everyone that contributes on the reg - your help is massively appreciated.



@Darran_OVO I hope you're going to do the Bristol 10k with me! I need to get my running shoes back on 🏃🏼



My highlights of the year just gone are pretty millenial - my travels. Particularly enjoyed seeing Berlin and Lisbon, both of which I'd never been to before.



Looking forward to another strong year on the forum and at work in general 🤓
Speaking of birthdays, a very happy day of birth anniversary to our forum ninja/superuser @Transparent 🍾🎈🎂



At 853 comments, 124 'best answers' and 14 topics of their own, our community wouldn't be the same without you!



So from all of us here in Bristol, we hope you have a lovely day in the sun!



Feel free to take a birthday selfie! 🤳
Thanks @Tim_OVO



Well I'm pleased to report that my top birthday present was a pair of shiny new SMETS2 meters from OVO. 😉





The red arrow points to the SMETS2 Electricity meter, manufactured by US company, Aclara. Note that this unit has just two buttons marked A & B, rather than the key-pad of the earlier SMETS1 meters made by Secure.



Bolted above it, and with a blue arrow, is the Mesh network transmitter/receiver unit made by Toshiba. That was selected because I'm in a remote area of West Devon with little mobile phone signal. This part of the apparatus is maintained by Telefonica for the south/central regions of Britain.



The green arrow shows the wire leading from the Mesh unit to an external aerial which is stuck (securely!) to the front-door of my wall-mounted meter enclosure.



So, I haven't quite uploaded a selfie, but I hope the above is a bit more interesting to other Forum users than my mugshot!
If anyone else is reading this Topic at a later date, can I point out that I've now written a more comprehensive (& illustrated) description of the process of a Smart Meter installation on another thread here.

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