Class error in asp.net

I am having problems with class' in asp.net. I have been expriencing a lot of problems. I have worked with classes before and never ran into this issus. It seems that for some reason the compiler won't see any variables within the class. It throws a nullReferanceException whenever i try to access the variables. i have included error and code. Any advice would be greatly appriciated.

When I build I am recieving this error:

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Code is here: Complile tracer points to bolded line
Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Public Class standardForums
Inherits System.Web.UI.UserControl

Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
'Put user code to initialize the page here
End Sub

Public Class bThread

Public tester As String
End Class

Public Sub loadForums(ByVal which As Integer)
Dim test As String
test = forum.loadById(which)

'lnkForumName.Text = forum.name
' lblDescription.Text = forum.description
' lnkModerator.Text = forum.moderator
'If Not forum.icon = 0 Then


Dim tester As New bThread
lblDescription.Text = tester.tester

End Sub

End Class

 

It appears to me that the problem is your bThread class lacks a new() method. So "tester = new bThread" is really doing nothing.