Posted 4th Jun 2009
GRIEF can tear us apart, but Terry George has found that it can also bring together thousands of people.
The website he founded to help the bereaved pay tribute to their loved ones – www.gonetoosoon.org – is being developed as a social networking site similar to Facebook and Twitter, to help people cope with their loss.
It also aims to attract sponsorship and advertising for the first time.
Mr George, who lives near Halifax, has built a business career around breaking taboos. He is probably best known for organising the annual Mr Gay UK competition. He has a large property portfolio and owns bars and nightclubs, including Bar Fibre and the Mission.
In 2007, he appeared on Channel 4's The Secret Millionaire. He spent 10 days working on the minimum wage in a Penzance nursing home.
He founded Gonetoosoon after suffering a personal tragedy.
He recalled: "When my dad died, I saw a lot of people at the funeral and I didn't really know how to thank them. Straight afterwards, they just disappeared. I wondered how I could thank them, because I didn't know where they lived.
"Later, two friends of mine came into my office carrying a memory of service card and written across the top was 'Gone Too Soon'.
"The card was about a boy who was killed in a hit-and-run accident. I thought about building a website for him where people could leave messages of condolence. People thought it was a fantastic idea.
"It was from there that we came up with the name, GoneTooSoon. I did a search on the web and couldn't find anything like it at all."
Since its launch, five years ago, Gonetoosoon.co.uk has helped thousands of people to express their grief. It grew in popularity after the London bombings of July 7, 2005.
Mr George said: "Quite soon after that, people were coming to visit the site and leave their messages of condolence. People have come back and created sites for their lost loved ones."
Mr George established the free-to-use site as a philanthropic gesture.
He said: "All that you see on Gonetoosoon has been financed by myself so far. We've now turned it into a business model where people who can afford it have started to sponsor some of the site.
"When you are getting three million hits a month, it takes up a lot of bandwidth and creates a lot of admin as well. We have three full-time developers who work constantly on Gonetoosoon.
"The great thing is that it is very community based. Everybody on there feels that they are part of a community because they have all got something in common. They have lost a loved one.
"They are very good at giving us ideas about what they want from the site.
"The latest idea is that they want a forum where they can talk to each other about their sense of loss.
"Then people came forward and said they wanted to give gifts as well. So they can leave virtual gifts on people's memorials."
The website also has virtual "gardens" where grieving people can place online tributes to their loved ones.
"If they lose another person, they can add that person to their garden,'' said Mr George.
"It's very much like the social networking you have on Facebook and Twitter. There's a great comfort in people sharing their grief. It seems to have happened since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
"We saw a massive difference when Diana passed away about the way people dealt with grief.
"We're trying to get some advertisers on the site. We look for sensitive advertisers, such as groups that deal with counselling and charities."
TERRY GEORGE
Self-made millionaire Terry George made legal history in 2005 when he married his partner in the UK's first civil ceremony.
Mr George and his long-term partner Michael Rothwell live in Carr Hall Castle in Stainland, near Halifax, which, in 2008, was voted Britain's Best Home by viewers of Channel Five.
It's a far cry from the terrace house in Bramley, Leeds, where Mr George was brought up.
His appearance on Channel 4's The Secret Millionaire – in which he went "undercover" as a nursing home worker – made him aware of the importance of community groups.
He said: "After The Secret Millionaire, I got involved with my local community centre in Stainland and I realised how important communities are. We're losing community centres and social clubs which played a big part in building communities.
"We also own a launderette. Michael and I like to go down and sit and chat to some of the people who pop in there.
"People might not expect to see me in a launderette, but I'm a bit like Dot Cotton out of EastEnders when I'm sitting there."
» See Also: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/small-business/Networking-site-eases-the-pain.5334537.jp
