Here is the second installment, looking back at what we got up to from July – December last year.

JULY 2009 was when “player meets” caught our imagination and we decided to be brave and step out into the real world. LOL. I must admit I was a little nervous, so before the first big trip to Alton Towers, I arranged for a smaller meet up with some of our chat hosts. We met up at Buckingham Bingo in Manchester, and had a very lucky night, coming home with £755 between the 11 of us!

I had a brilliant time at the bingo with the team, and it gave me a lot of confidence for the trip to Alton Towers that was to follow. We created a Theme Park bingo room to get everyone excited, and so that those who couldn’t join us on the day could still feel part of the fun. Despite the rain, we managed to have an enjoyable day out and put even more faces to names that I see every day on the site. We took a video camera along and interviewed several of the players, which was really pleasing to look back on when we got home.

We also launched two Summer holiday bingo rooms (Spanish and UK) – each with a brand new progressive jackpots feature. We had been working on this new addition to the bingo rooms for several months, and it was fantastic to finally see it being added to the site.

AUGUST saw yet more player meets. This time, our Scottish based chat hosts Debzcar and Wendy2904 arranged their own ‘unofficial’ player meets, which we were not able to attend, but helped out by sending over some of our new FBUK t-shirts. For photos see: Wendy’s Meet – Debzcar’s Meet.

1,270 players filled out our first ever Player’s Survey, and it was really useful in helping shape some of the promotions, themed rooms and competitions that were to come in the future months. One of the questions we asked was, “If you could choose any theme for a bingo room, what would it be?” The results produced this interesting word cloud (larger the letters, the more often it was said):

In SEPTEMBER we began with the usual fun of our Back to School room, with the adorable kid callers. We added progressive jackpots to more rooms and introduced the ‘friend finder’ box to the games page, which made it even easier to quickly see where your friends were playing.

The idea of a football based bingo room was by far the most common idea mentioned on our player’s survey, and so we launched a Football Speed Bingo room, complete with ‘John Motson’ style bingo caller. However, we knew this idea wouldn’t appeal to all our players, so we launched it at the same time as our TV Room, which brought with it guaranteed jackpots each evening when the soaps are on.

In OCTOBER we repeated a couple of room from previous years, such as the spooky Halloween Room and the Pink Room (helping raise awareness for Breast Cancer Month). But by far and away the biggest thing taking place in October was the 2nd Official FreeBingo Players Meet in Blackpool.

After meeting up at the PleasureBeach in the afternoon, we all joined up again in the evening for lots of drinks, a bingo quiz and several games of Rock and Roll Bingo. With help from the chat hosts, our sponsors GoldenHatBingo and Mark from Rock and Roll Bingo, everyone had a fantastic time. Once again, we brought a cameraman along with us so that all the players back home could see what fun we got up to!

In NOVEMBER we celebrated our 4th birthday by holding a series of Dabbers Only Tournaments, with a £100 top prize. After an exciting two hour grand final, sevenofnine was declared the dabbers champion!

After our birthday celebrations, we opened the much anticipated St Andrew’s Day Room. We even got Wendy2904 to record a set of calls to give it an authentic Scottish flavour! LOL.

In DECEMBER we had three different Christmas bingo rooms! We had a 90 ball version, a 75 ball version and even a Tournament version! The latter was the venue for a special week of Christmas tournaments where we gave away £700 in paysafecard cash vouchers! It was the most money we’ve ever given away in such a short space of time.

Finally, we saw in 2010 with the traditional New Years Bingo Room, where for one full week there was a massive FB£2010 jackpot to win for claiming bingo in 50 calls or less! No wonder the leaderboard went absolutely mental in January with thousands of FB£s on the board! LOL.

I hope you all enjoyed the fun we had in 2009. Here is to even more fun and games in 2010. Good luck!