I emailed the following website
[url]www.ukgovabusesexpats.co.uk

My name is Sharon and I run the Live Spain for Life website and am a member of yours, as you know it nearly impossible to be up to date with the ever changing rules and regulations here in Spain as hard as I try. I run this website and my company single handedly with occasional help from my husband and solicitor as I find that the best way to give the service I offer.

I often go to your website for information for which I am constantly seeking to answer clients questions etc from health to residency issues and I also get lots of emails to the site for people trying to find out current up to date procedures. Often there is not enough hours in the day to find all the answers even if they are available somewhere.

I have a link to your website on mine in several places here and here for example and my aim is to make things as simple as possible for clients and visitors to the site and any help is always appreciated be it given or taken.

I am writing to ask permission to copy and paste some of the information that people are requesting but would of course always mention the source, if you prefer to me to link to your site whenever necessary I am happy to continue doing this.

Also if there is anything I can ever contribute to I would be happy to do so, I do not have relevant qualifications as such which may be a problem but I have a fantastic solicitor who also contributes to my site with up to date tax information etc if that is of any help.

I would also be happy to hear any comments you have about my site good or bad, I can take constructive criticism well!

Thank you for taking the time to read my email I know how time consuming this type of work can be.

Kind Regards

Sharon

Although the reply I got did not enable me to copy any information from the very useful site I understand totally the reasons for this and thought I would post up the reply in the hope of promoting the site and therefore in the long term fighting our corner in Spain...........

Here is the reply why not have a look and become a member the more people support the cause the stronger it is ..........

Hi Sharon

Many thanks for your recent enquiry re placing information from the British ExPats Association, on you own web site. As you may be aware The British ExPats Association (Spain) is the most authoritative web site, of its kind, in Europe, and constantly strives to serve its Ex Pat Membership which now numbers several thousand Members.

Up until around a year ago, our web site was constantly getting abused, whereby individuals from newspapers, magazines, web sites or Local Associations, felt able to download and disseminate our hard work, often "pretending" that it was the fruits of their hard endeavours. Clearly this was a totally unacceptable practice to us, and we think we have now eradicated most, if not all of the "offenders".(One advantage of having a large Membership, is that it is common for one, or more, of our Members to see such abuses, and to report such instances to us) Consequent upon this abuse we then decided that it would be more appropriate to have a Membership only, based British ExPat Association, which exists currently.

We do permit our Members to freely print off any article, but on the strict understanding it must only be used for their OWN personal use. In the past we have had a couple of individuals, one a Secretary of a local ExPat community who was actually printing off pertinent articles and then distributing them at their monthly meetings. Albeit, in fairness, that he always gave us the credit and therefore felt it was acceptable to do so, he was of course handing out Association work to non Members. He has since been advised of his error and has now desisted from doing so, choosing rather to persuade his own "members" to join our Association.

Our thinking, in this matter Sharon, is fairly simplistic. If we want the E.U., the U.K. or Spanish Governments to listen when we approach them, we need to show that we are not a weak voice, but rather one to be reckoned with. Our having serious numbers of Members - the more the better, then the more clout we carry. Handing out articles on a "free" basis totally negates such a strategy, except in very limited situations where for example we have directly assisted our Embassies, or when we want a broad distribution of a particular issue. In such circumstances we then send press releases to the many local newspapers who, in turn, print our article whilst giving us full credit for it. This of course, in reality, also serves as a "free", and often effective, recruitment campaign for the Association.

Sharon you are not alone in making a request to carry Association information on your web site, indeed several web sites who had wished to do so, now happily carry a link to the Associations web site. (www.ukgovabusesexpats.co.uk) We have no objections to that happening, of course, indeed we are powerless to stop it.

That said we must decline your request to carry Association information directly on your web site, but are happy for you to provide a link to the Association should you so wish.

If you have any other comments to make please feel free to contact us

Regards

Peter
Peter Woodall
Webmaster and co-founder of British ExPats Association (Spain)