Goodbye Tots 100, and Thank you.

This week I heard of the end of Tots 100. I first heard of them way back in 2011 when I saw a tweet about a blog event in my home city. I applied for a ticket and went along. At the time I had a blog about my children called Baby Number Five (because I’d just had baby number 5) and a Blog about Cake because that’s what I was loving doing at the time, baking and decorating cakes.

Anyway, I went along to this even which was hosted by Sally from Tots100 and met a lot of other fresh faced bloggers. Oh we were young and new and this blogging thing was so exciting. I found out that some of these bloggers were actually getting paid for content on their blogs and getting free stuff in return for writing about it. My mind was blown!

I went away and came back with a new blog, Raisie Bay. It was a bit crap at first, but I soon got into the hang of it and with the help of Tots 100 I soon had some opportunities come my way. One of the most exciting was becoming a Center Parcs Blogger which including a holiday at Center Parcs with my family and lots of things thrown in including, Spa Treatments, bike hire, activities and a fantastic meal out.

We also had a fantastic day out with a load of other bloggers at Legoland Windsor. This was for all the bloggers who had been nominated for the MAD blog awards. MAD stands for Mum and Dad by the way.

I was nominated for the MAD awards 3 times but I never won. I’m not aggrieved though, I had three totally amazing evenings. 2013 with Dr Ranj hosting. The 2015 Blog Awards where I became room mates with the lovely Steph. And Finally the 2016 Blog Awards were I was allowed to attend with Graham as my carer because by this time I was disabled. This one turned out to be quite the adventure!

As well as all the opportunities and Blog Awards and Blog Camps, I’ve also been on Blogger retreats which were totally amazing experiences. The first was in Somerset in 2018 in a lovely old house in the middle of nowhere. The Second was in a more modern setting in Wales at the Tynhryd Retreat. Where I experienced some mobility issues but the resort took on board my feed back and have now installed ramps for wheelchair users. It didn’t spoil my weekend though.

So Tots 100 and Flea Enterprises have given me so much over the years and even though I never made it into to the top 100 of their charts I remember excitedly checking every month to see where I ranked.

I’ve met so many other bloggers on this journey that I probably would not have done had it not been for Tots, and I have learnt so much. It’s sad to see it go, but I’m amazed at how many bloggers are still going from those early days and how much all of our children have grown. a lot of Tots bloggers were parents of young children, my three were one, three and five years old when I started. I have three teenagers now!

Here are a few photos from the years gone by.

So What’s next for Flea Enterprises? Well, they have ventured into online training courses for SEO, copywriting and media relations. They will help you optimise your website and online presence and you can even begin with a course for free!