Not a bad design. I just don't like the black background to the sides. It also seems to take some time to load (I'm at the University now where we're supposed to have a fast connection but it has been known to be slow at times so it could be that). You have a lot of forums. My suggestion would be to minimize this number until you get some regular posters and then expand as needed. It can be a turn off to people when they visit your site and see a bunch of forums with next to none posts.
Nice design, color scheme is good too. The yellow text hurts by eyes after a little while though :crazy:
Other than that it looks like a great forum! Happy webmasters indeed!