Our Purpose

We'll tell you what the purpose of Truepride is, but here's an extract from The Romaniuk Web Business Review about Truepride of Yorkshire which was published after a subsidiary of the same company refused to create a site for us. It seems their view of us has changed somewhat!

Truepride of Yorkshire was set up in late 1999 by Richard Killip because he wanted people to feel proud of where they were from and what they did hence he set up the Truepride store using the then limited services at http://www.cafepress.com and a website with the popular http://www.homestead.com because he didn't want to mess about with FTP and HTML design. When business started to pick up, he contracted Romaniuk Web Architects of Bradford plc to do a Flash™ Enabled version of the site but unfortunately they refused on the grounds that his site did not have enough traffic so he had to stick with his Homestead one. Meanwhile, however, he started messing around with a popular HTML design package and produced a site in HTML only to discover that his Homestead server "could not handle" the extensions of that particular package so he opened up an account with http://www.50megs.com so as he could upload his HTML site and used his existing site on Homestead simply to link to it. Business was not too bad by this time and he thought about acquiring the domain http://www.truepride.com which was, at that time, available but when he did a search on http://www.register.com he found out that he would have to pay $70,-- A YEAR to keep the site there NOT INCLUDING hosting so he decided against the idea. Later on, near Christmas 1999 he introduced more merchandise from more towns an cities in Yorkshire ready for the Christmas rush. On the newsgroup uk.local.yorkshire people were talking about the excellent designs Richard had to offer on his site and people from all over Britain started e-mailing him asking him to do merchandise from all over the country but Richard's reply was always this,

Sir
As much as I would like to help you, Truepride is a true Yorkshire firm and I myself are a true Yorkshireman. I therefore cannot, ethically start producing saying that I am proud to be from somewhere outside God's own county.
Sorry again
Richard Killip
Truepride of Yorkshire

Halfway through 2000 however, Richard's business really WAS booming and he did start to think about doing other places out of Yorkshire. Please DO email us and reccomend places. He then went to acquire the domain http://www.truepride.com but unfortunately by that time it was taken by another firm. He eventually settled for http://www.truepridemerchandise.com. That brings us up to today. Truepride of Yorkshire, a REAL success story!

And heres a note from Richard: Drop us an email and we'll do your area, if we can! Now for our purpose

The Purpose of Truepride of Yorkshire ©Richard Killip 2000
Truepride of Yorkshire was set up in late 1999 so that people, such as you and I could show that we are proud of who we are, where we're from and what we do. Firstly it comprised of only one store, the Yorkshire one and gradually more were added one at a time. The sole purpose of Truepride is pride. Without the Places section, Truepride is nothing. Yes I grant you, the novelty merchandise is funny and the football merchandise is...well....football and they fit in with the Places range but the purpose of Truepride is neither of these. The purpose is PRIDE. Without the Places section, I stress and I repeat again, Truepride means nothing! Truepride of Yorkshire was not set up in order to make money and nor was it set up as an excuse to spam people and newsgroups. We have an internal anti-spam policy which is in place for a reason. Truepride is there to be enjoyed. Accessing the site is your choice. As you can see from the new site design, we are laid-back, we want you to feel relaxed. We are not here to be thrust upon you and if you are then please contact us and we will put a stop to it by reporting spammers to ISP's etc. Please enjoy Truepride and if you like the site please link to us but note that there's no obligation to do anything! You don't have to buy, you don't have to link you don't have to report spammers but doing all of these things will make your life with Truepride a lot easier. Please help.