After four years of interesting comment and debate, the Renegade Conservatory Guy website has been shut down by Matthew Glover.

A holding page at the existing URL had this to say:

After 4 years of writing this blog I have decided it is time to close it down with immediate effect.

This website has been very kind to me, and I have made countless friends and business contacts over this period of time. I would like to thank all the people who have read and contributed to the discussions on the various blog posts which at the time I felt were important enough to write about.

But, I feel it is time to move on. It can be quite time consuming writing interesting content, and more recently I have felt that I have little to say which might be of interest to readers. The FIT Show is taking a lot of my time and I’m enjoying the challenge of bringing back an industry show that the window, door and conservatory industry can be proud of. I’m also still involved with Conservatory Outlet and supporting the management team to grow this leading trade supplier.

And, crucially, my two boys are at an age where they need their Dad to be involved, taking them to football training, playing golf and so on.

I am still active on Twitter so to keep in touch please follow me at: https://twitter.com/#!/RenegadeGuy

Mr Glover makes a very good point as regards to time consumption. Writing interesting comment and debate on a regular basis, in my case on a daily basis, is very hard to do. This industry can sometimes be a very boring one, so finding something to write about can be very difficult.

The Renegade Conservatory Guy website has done a lot for the online side of our industry. It was the first dedicated blog for the industry and very quickly developed a strong, loyal and regular readership with hundreds of subscriptions, including me! Nothing else was like it around. In fact the site was the very reason I started my own. I am a pretty opinionated person myself and through me seeing this website and reading regularly, it gave me the impetus to start my own. So for that I would like to thank him.

I also believe it developed other areas of our online industry. Take GlassTalk for example. It was the first dedicated double glazing industry forum which latched on to the growing industry internet community. It didn’t last as long as it was probably hoped unfortunately, but it was derived from the success of the RCG website and the hunger it created for debate within the industry.

Over the last year or so the site wasn’t updated as regularly as it used to. This being down to Conservatory Outlet and FiT Show commitments. But in it’s beginning, the site certainly did court controversy (like me!) with stories of big industry companies going under and other rumors of purchases and quite blunt opinions of certain things that he didn’t agree with. Again, this was a first of it’s kind and really did give the industry a wake up call.

The industry as a whole is underpopulated with blogs in my opinion. With tens of thousands of companies, you can count on one hand the amount of dedicated opinion blogs, which is a shame really. And the industry has just got a little bit quieter with the closure of RCG. However, this does mean that a proper rivalry between me and Aluminium Trade Supply can be struck and he can now start on trying to over take me when it comes to traffic ;)

On a serious note, I would like the thank Matthew for creating such an influential website that has spawned others (including mine) and one which became a mainstay of the industry as a whole. Myself, and I’m sure everyone else would like to wish him well in his future ventures and hope that the FIT Show is as successful as they plan!