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The First 5 years
The seeds of CharlotteChurch.net go back further than the 5 years we are
celebrating in this feature. The now legendary ‘USMark’ launched his first
Charlotte website – Charlottechurch.iwarp.com – way back on December 21,
1999.
What started out as a simple fan page was soon to grow into ‘the’ online
community for Charlotte fans around the world, with over 1000 unique
visitors in the first 2 weeks alone. USMark’s fan page was not designed
for such a large audience and the search began for a bigger home. Via one
of the many Charlotte Church message boards USMark was soon in talks with
a guy called Joe who had similar ideas about setting up a comprehensive
website for Charlotte fans. CharlotteChurch.net was born.
And so onto our brief recap of the past 5 years for Charlotte and
CharlotteChurch.net.
We can’t mention every release, event, appearance, concert etc. since 2000
– there are literally hundreds and this feature would turn into a mirror
image of our website! Instead, we are focusing on a selection of key dates
as well as favourite moments suggested by some of our forum members. We’ve
included links so you can see for yourself why there is so much to
celebrate. Here we go …
2000
CharlotteChurch.net was launched on 21st February 2000, the same date as
Charlotte’s 14th birthday. It began with the familiar site update, then
written on an almost daily basis. You can still read this
first update
and all those since via our
Site Digest pages.
In November, Charlotte’s Christmas album - Dream A Dream – was released
across the World. We covered all of Charlotte’s
promotional appearances on both sides of the Atlantic.
The first year of the new millennium was one of Charlotte’s busiest. We
could fill this entire recap with this year alone! Instead, why not
revisit our
2000 Year in Review feature for the full
story.
2001
21st February 2001 marked
Charlotte’s 15th Birthday and the 1st
anniversary of CharlotteChurch.net.
In July, Charlotte appeared at Hyde Park for the
Picnic in the Park concert, in front of a
crowd of nearly 100,000! This marked the start of a series of concerts
that were to take Charlotte to
San Diego,
Hollywood,
Honolulu, and
Dallas during the summer months.
Charlotte’s 4th studio album - Enchantment – was released in October.
Charlotte embarked on a major promotional campaign for the Enchantment
album with appearances on numerous high profile shows in the US and UK.
Team Europe (DutchMark and UKMark) spent many a happy evening attending
several of the UK dates. The Enchantment Concert from St. David’s Hall,
Cardiff was recorded in September and was later released on Home Video.
See our
2001 Year in Review feature for a
complete roundup of 2001.
2002
In February, Charlotte celebrated her
16th Birthday and CharlotteChurch.net was
2.
In the summer of this year we opened our extensive library of vintage and
never before archived video content in a new feature called
Looking Back. One firm favourite from this feature is
Charlotte’s first appearance with Peter Karrie.
Unmasked with Peter Karrie first aired on BBC1 Wales on
December 18, 1998. Charlotte was to team up with Peter again as part of
his
Peter Karrie and Friends theatre tour in
September 2003.
2002 was a period of significant change for the website. We moved away
from the original domain (CharlotteChurchfans.com) to CharlotteChurch.net
in order to continue with our original aim of a fan site freely available
for all Charlotte fans. Later that year, USMark went off to University and
reluctantly had to retire from his contributions to the website. We wish
Mark every success and happiness for the future.
In August, Charlotte received her
GCSE exam results. Straight A’s ! Is there no end to her
talents?
Towards the end of the year, the Prelude album was released. This 5th
album was a fitting bookend to the first phase of Charlotte’s singing
career.
See our 2002 Year
in Review feature for a complete roundup of 2002.
2003
2003 started on a high
with the
The Opera Song entering the UK Singles
chart at number 3. This collaboration with Jurgen Vries is to date,
Charlotte’s only venture into dance music.
CharlotteChurch.net turned 3 on February 21st, the date of
Charlotte’s 17th Birthday.
In April a number of
fans gathered in Las Vegas for a one off full length concert at the
Aladdin Casino. Jamie and Dave submitted a
great
report of the event. The icing on the cake was a surprise
preview screening of I'll Be There the next day
Charlotte’s first movie
I’ll Be There was released in the UK in
June. Charlotte promoted the movie on TV, radio and in magazines.
Premieres were held in Cardiff and London.
2003 was a busy year for appearances on the covers of magazines. In
recognition of this, we launched a new feature –
Cover Girl – bringing together all of Charlotte’s cover story
magazine articles.
See our 2003 Year
in Review feature for a complete roundup of 2003.
2004
2004 was a relatively quiet year as far as releases and public appearances
were concerned but behind the scenes Charlotte was busy working on her
next studio album.
Charlotte’s
18th Birthday was accompanied by a new
photo
shoot. At CharlotteChurch.net we celebrated our 4th birthday.
After years of daft media stories (predominantly from the UK tabloid
press), Charlotte finally set the records straight in the TV documentary
Charlotte Church: Spreading Her Wings.
This is essential viewing – highly recommended. Cover feature interviews
in the
Radio Times and
Sunday
Times magazines addressed the media balance still further.
In November Charlotte performed at a
Royal Gala in celebration of the opening
of the Millennium Centre, Cardiff.
See our 2004 Year
in Review feature for a complete roundup of 2004.
2005
Early in the New Year Charlotte performed at the
Tsunami Relief Concert from Cardiff’s
Millennium Stadium. Amongst a couple of favourite songs from Charlotte’s
more recent concerts we also got a preview from her forthcoming album.
February 21, 2005 – Charlotte’s
19th Birthday. We are 5!
So, what’s coming up in 2005? Be sure to read
Charlotte’s message for
exciting news of her forthcoming album.
A review of the past 5 years would not be complete without a mention for
our vibrant forum community. We thank everyone for your continued
participation and hope you have enjoyed visiting our site and forums as
much as we have enjoyed running them.
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