Official EOS Blog

So here's the conversation between Justin and Maria de Castro....

Maria:  "Hey Justin, haven't seen you in a while, let's meet for coffee at Alcaidesa".

Justin:   "Great, see you there tomorrow."

The next day....

Justin:  "Blah, blah, blah, I am thinking of kicking off the EOS meet ups again.  They were getting increasingly popular and people were enjoying meeting others.  I think you came along to a couple of them."

Maria:  "Yes, they were good.  Lots turned up to the last one you did.  I was there."

Justin:  "I remember the first one, only four of us turned up!  But at the last one there were over 100."

Maria:  "What about if we have a session too where people can ask questions about a specific topic?"

Justin:  "I like it.  Maybe you could do a short talk on on a subject, such as communities, and then people can ask you questions?"

Maria:  "I'm happy to do that.  You know I'm always happy to share information."

Justin:  "I know...that's why I asked.  Good opportunity for people to meet others and learn a little if they want to.  And seeing as we're at this golf club, why don't we do something here?"

Maria:  "I know the manager here.  Let's call Juan Alberto over to chat."

Several minutes later....

Juan Alberto:  "Sounds great to me.  I am happy to give you clubs and balls so that you can all play around on the putting green for free.  Hopefully people will buy some drinks!"

Justin:  "That's a great idea and I'm sure you'll sell plenty of drinks!  Fun, learn and socialise.  Sounds good to."

Maria:  "Do you think people will be interested in this?"

Justin:  "I have no idea.  Let's find out what people think.  It's a free afternoon out where people can meet others and learn some important information about rights and law in Spain and have a bit of fun playing on the putting green.  I'll be there!"

So, what do you think?  We would have to do it locally at first but we can arrange this in different places if the interest is there?

Feedback appreciated please!!

Thanks.

Notice something different about this home page?

We've been running a lighter ad-free version of Eye on Spain internally for the past couple of weeks.  We appreciate that many regular users get annoyed with so many ads but they do keep the site going!

However, when we originally designed the site we did make a provision to swtich off the ads but we never used it.

But it seems many users would like to have the option to do this for a small fee....which we'll let you know what it is once we've checked everything is working great.

The interesting thing is that on the lighter version we're testing at the moment, the byproduct has been that the site runs considerably quicker without all the ads and the unnecessary extras that go along with them.  Pages seem to load instantly!

It's also taken us a bit of time to get used to the lack of clutter on the pages!!

More info to follow soon....

Over the past couple of weeks we've been asking our members and newsletter readers to give us some feedback as to what they currently use on the site, what they think of it and what they want from it going forward.

With well over 2,000 responses the feedback has been truly amazing.

This sort of feedback and response will drive forward our development campaign as we head into 2011.

Therefore, THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to complete the survey.  We really do appreciate everyone's input. 

As promised we have selected three people to win a copy of the "Bitten by Spain" book.  These are:

• Arlene Gemmell
• William Naylor
• John Adlam

Well done to you three, we'll be in touch with you today regarding your prizes.

Results Summary

Now, we'd like to share with you some of the findings from the survey, just in case you're interested .

Of all of the respondents.....

87% are in the 46+ age group, with the highest group being the 56 - 65 at 42%.

48% already own a property in Spain, with 23% already living in Spain.

12% are looking to move to Spain.

52% prefer a weekly newsletter instead of bi-weekly or monthly.

Main topics of interest are "Spanish property market", "Life and culture in Spain", "Latest news" and "Legal information".

Most desired new facilities for EOS are "Ask the experts", "Events in Spain", "Offers and vouchers" and "Meet-up faciilty".

The biggest furstrations with the site are "Too many ads", "Loads too slowly" and "The forums are lacking too many features".

27% would like to have the option to pay an annual subscription to remove the ads and receive other benefits.

Although we never explicitly asked it in the survey, an astonishing amount of people stated that they really miss The Siesta Show videos.  We were quite surprised by this....so maybe watch this space.

In Response

In the comments in the survey many people have asked us questions and left messages for us.  Over the next few days I WILL be responding to everyone who asked us a question in the survey.  It's only fair I return the favour.

I hope you found this data interesting. 

As always, your comments are welcome and you can leave them below.

Thanks again to you all!

Regards

Justin

We've just made some changes to the blogs on EOS.

We have widened the blogs to allow videos and images to be included within the posts much better.  It was too narrow before especially with the new default size videos from YouTube.

As we have changed several things you may need to refresh your browser so that everything falls into place.

Happy blogging!

EOS Team

It's that time again where we ask you for your feedback about Eye on Spain and our newsletter.

We carry out a survey every couple of years and it helps us to really get a feel for what our members and readers really want from the website.

Every opinion counts so please just take a couple of minutes to help us improve and grow in line with what you would like Eye on Spain to be.

And yes, we are offering a bribe. At the end of the survey you have the option to drop your name in the hat to win one of three copies of the book "Bitten by Spain", by Deborah Fletcher, which if you haven't read it yet then you're going to love it. We'll announce the winners on 19 October 2010.

Click here to compete our short survey now.

Thank you for yout time.

Justin

We're delighted to now list jobs in Spain and Gibraltar here on Eye on Spain.

The jobs featured are provided by our friends at ThinkSpain.com.  Applications for any of the jobs are submitted via the ThinkSpain website.

We have added our jobs page under the "Lifestyle" tab in the top menu on the site here.

We trust you'll find this new service of interest.

Check out the latest jobs in Spain and Gibraltar.

Thanks to Alana Burton from My Baby Spain for this lovely review of the Eye on Spain Schools & Education in Spain ebook:

"The Eye on Spain education e-book is invaluable for any ex-pat parents in Spain and also any parents who may be wondering about how the Spanish education system works.

As one of the most important things to consider when bringing up a child in Spain, the education system is something that is going to play a huge role in your life and you will obviously want the best for your child.

Before reading the education e-book I admit to knowing slim to nothing about the public school system in Spain. In the UK it can sometimes all be about the area you live in and whether you can afford private education or not but Susan manages to untangle the system in Spain so that it’s much easier to know what you can expect for your child in Spain.

With twins of her own, Susan explains the differences between the UK and Spanish systems including the syllabus, school costs, how to get involved as parents, pastoral care and the important area of bilingualism and integration. She also gives tips and advice on how to complement the Spanish education system to ensure your English child doesn’t lose out in any way and also how to be organised with what may appear to be a disorganised system and laissez-faire attitude to things such as the date of the first day of term!

The e-book is aimed at any parents with a child of school age, no matter how fluent their current level of Spanish, their age or even what year of school they are in.

I would recommend the education e-book as a useful investment to anyone with a child of school-age who is interested in taking advantage of the extensive experience of a fellow ex-pat mum in Spain to ensure their child gets the best education possible."

Find our more information about the Eye on Spain Schools & Education in Spain ebook.

Our private message facility has been one of the areas of the site needing significant attention for some time.

So today we're pleased to announce that we have just made live our new, and much impoved, private message facility.

The new style PM facility now groups conversations together in one easy layout, whereas the old system would shown every response to every conversation.

You can also now "bin" conversations and leave them there, or recover them to your inbox at any time.

It's all much more user friendly.

Now, as this system works in a totally different way to the old system, we were unable to integrate all previous messages into it.  Therefore, when you go to your private messages inbox, if you scroll down you will see a link there to the previous private message facility.  You can still use it to complete existing conversations, but all new conversations will use the new facility.

Please also note that very soon we're going to be deleting old messages from 2007, 2008 and 2009, although we'll give you plenty of warning before we do that.  All those old messages are taking up a huge amount of storage space on our server.

We hope you like the new facility.  It is a huge improvement over the old one.