After missing our SFTW slot last week due to many of the AA CREW being out at events all weekend, we’re back to usual now… before we have our annual shutdown and office vacations starting mid next week!
This is the main time each year that we shut much everything down to undertake server maintenance and website/publishing platform updates, and this year of course it’s more important than ever! Since deciding not to return to Facebook we’ve been monitoring our analytics closely to see if there has been any affect… and there most certainly has…
Since the AIRSOFT ACTION page got canned from Facebook on 3/4 August we’ve gained 3299 new users on the website/app, up 14% on normal average growth. Sessions are also up by 15% and Page Views up by 14%, and the Bounce Rate is down by 6%.On the day we announced we were leaving Facebook and not returning with a new page website views spiked hugely, and on August New Issue Day we had more views here on the website than ever before…
It appears that you all love your little daily AA fix, and indeed the big monthly hit of the main magazine, and although our activity will drop from 4-23 September as we get stuff done behind the scenes ISSUE 166 will go live as always on 15 SEPTEMBER… you can see why it’s important that we keep everything right up to scratch… and like all of you… we want a holiday!
But that’s next week; right now what have the members of the AA LEGION been doing in their activities and what’s planned for the weekend ahead?
Bill told us that “after a superb NAF with Ben this year, one that reminded all of us of the best Festivals of past years, we obviously had a lot of kit to sort out… much of which was still wet after the torrential rain of Saturday… kudos to all those there that fought on through! This weekend will be a little quieter with just some rangetime; I’ve been working up the GHM9 GBB MKI that we’ve had for a while and done some work on, and the new MKII needs some further time on target before I drop my evaluation next month… suffice to say though that the MKII has suffered none of the teething problems of the MKI and is proving to be a fabulous little platform from the box!”
Stewbacca said “we’re trying a new urban site that’s just a bus ride north from me this weekend it seems, so I’ll use the MOE and tracer again indoors I imagine, along with the bigass drum mag and some new client’s trial ammo; I have red and green tracer BBs, so I stacked them in the mags last time to warn me I was running low with 10 red on the bottom and green filling the rest, it was really effective!”
Dan commented in our LEGION chat “I feel like I need a weekend from my last weekend! I’m still sore in new places from the 14 hour game lol. Likely though, I will catch up on some work projects. I have a KWA ERG conversion to MK12 SPR to complete before the 6th, and an Ares Striker getting converted to a Wolverine BOLT M HPA build, also due by the 6th. Those are the only two on a strict deadline, after which I can breathe a little. I also need to go through my PKM real quick and figure out what’s causing a minor BB jam issue; since I’m squad gunner for the upcoming OP: Pegasus XV, I need to have that squared away and in top shape for the event!”
Jimmy shared some secrets; “due to not being able to join the lads at NAF due to some “logistics issues” I took a break last weekend from anything airsoft-related and treated myself to 3 days of lounging around in my pants, playing copious amounts of COD and eating way to much junk food; it was nice to have some unexpected downtime! This weekend coming I am in the workshop with yet another mountain of work AEGs and GBBs to get through, one of which is a troublesome M14 EBR which just will not do what I tell it do. Sunday I am looking to venture out to a site I have never been to; it’s a couple of hours away up in Colchester and on paper it looks to be an amazing site. It will be nice to get away from Cool Under Fire and see somewhere new and just be able to play a whole day without getting bombarded with tech-related quizzes or having to deal with the chrono queue…”
So, while some of the AA LEGION take a well-earned break after their recent adventures, it’s a pretty standard weekend ahead for some of us as we hit the range, workshops, and games, whilst at the same time putting together the new issue for next week!
Our last “order of business” this week though is to wish our man in Portugal, Miguel (pictured this week), a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY and we hope that you’ll join us in wishing all the very best to a fine player and steadfast friend that gives so much to our community, not only in his home country but worldwide!
And for all of you around this big, wide world of airsoft we hope you have a GREAT weekend, and if you’re out slinging BBs then Play hard, Play safe, and above all, Play with Honour!
