PARWICH.ORG

Officially speaking, PARWICH.ORG is not much more than six months old – but strictly speaking, we’re a little older than that.

Exactly a year ago today, with no fanfare and no publicity, the very first test post appeared on this blog. It was a modest piece, which simply linked to a 1975 news feature on the notorious “Red House Raid” that had recently re-surfaced on the web.

Although four more posts appeared on the same day, this was followed by two months of “radio silence”, while we went away and discussed the pros and cons of running a village blog.

Would people read it? Would they contribute to it? Would there even be enough to write about?

As we could only find two other village blogs in the country – neither of which were being regularly updated – we could only hazard a guess, and take a leap of faith into untested waters.

Twelve months, 775 posts and 1,026 comments later (not to mention the 50+ “static” pages elsewhere on the site), it does rather look as if the experiment has paid off. And so, if you’ll allow us a brief moment of self-congratulation…

Happy Birthday to us!

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It is positive to see so many people adding comments.  As well as approaching 80,000 hits, the number of comments so far is in the 980s.  Who will make the 1,000th comment?

Don’t forget the more comments you add to the site and the more new posts you email to parwich@hotmail.co.uk the more this site will reflect the interests and needs of everyone connected with Alsop, Ballidon, Parwich and Pikehall.

Also do let us know if you have any ideas for more supporting pages, or if any further local groups that want their own pages here at PARWICH.ORG.

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Our yet More Links page has recently been updated.  It contains list of links relating to:

• Other Derbyshire or Peak District communities’ websites
• General Derbyshire and Peak District sites
• Midlands and National general rural living sites

Do let us know about any other websites that you think we should add, particularly other Peak District community sites that we have missed.  Also, please send us any reasonably local links for our Where to go page.  As well as the links via post, these two pages can also be accessed from the ELSEWHERE ON PARWICH.ORG list in the right hand column.

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To all commenters: please be aware that a valid e-mail address must be supplied when leaving a comment. From this point onwards, the admin team will automatically delete any comment made using a fake e-mail address.

As explained before, e-mail addresses will never be revealed to anyone outside the admin team – so please, comment with confidence!

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After all the excitement of Wakes Week, we seem to be heading into something of a quiet period. For the first time since the official launch of this site (March 16th), no new posts were published yesterday, ending an unbroken 129-day run.

With the holiday season now upon us, posting frequency will probably remain quite slow for a while. We hope that you will bear with us through this seasonal lull!

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Wednesday marked another milestone in the short but eventful history of PARWICH.ORG, as the site received over 1000 page views in a single day.

For a community with only around 500 on its electoral roll, that’s pretty good going!

Those of us on the editorial team always knew that Wakes Week would be a busy time for the blog, but this week’s figures have surpassed our wildest expectations.

Our thanks to everyone who has supported the site, both within the community and beyond it. (We have regular readers as far away as the USA, and we welcome them one and all.)

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We saw a record number of hits yesterday at PARWICH.ORG, with 902 page/post views, about 250 more than our previous best day!  In part this is because of Wakes Week, and the fact that we have been able to get some things posted on the same day.  Thank you to the Blog team and to everyone who has commented and sent in posts.  Keep them coming.

We now have had over 42,000 hits in total since our official lauch on 16th March of this year.  Also we have seen some 462 post and 697 comments.  Keep them coming.  Our remarkable success is a tribute to the whole community.

The next target is to top 1,000 hits in one day, but we can’t do it without you.

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It is great how so many people are commenting on posts. Hopefully the more debate the better informed we will all be, and PARWICH.ORG will be an increasingly accurate reflection of the whole community. However, don’t forget you can also create your own new posts by emailing them to parwich@hotmail.co.uk.

Some excellent photos are coming in; please keep them coming (as JPG or GIF attachments wherever possible, please; Word documents and printed hard copies are harder to reproduce). The details of events and groups are great; please send more. But you can also send in opinion pieces and items for discussion. Residents of Alsop, Pikehall and Ballidon: we want to hear more from you. Young people: we want to hear more from you.

As long as it is relevant to the residents of Alsop, Ballidon, Parwich and Pikehall, we want you to send it in. Controversy is brilliant; as long as it does not fall foul of the laws of libel or obscenity, or invade other people’s privacy, we want you to send it in.

Just a few words of warning… (more…)

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The other day someone was asking me what happens to posts after they fall off the bottom of our HOME page.  So for anyone else also wondering how to find old posts here is some guidance.

At present the HOME page shows the 40 most recent posts (this number can be altered but 40 seems to about work).  When a new post is added to the top the bottom one moves down off the page.  Depending on how many new posts are being added it usually takes between a week and ten days for a new post to reach the bottom of the HOME page and fall off.  However, they are not lost and there are a number of ways of accessing them:

1. The simplest is to click on the link ‘Older Posts‘ at the bottom of the HOME page.  This will give you the 40 previous posts.  Again by clicking on ‘Older Posts‘ at the bottom of this second page you can access the 40 posts before them, and so on.  At the time of writing this post there are some 8 pages of older posts.
2. At the bottom of each post you will see categories (e.g. ‘Project Parwich‘ or ‘Gardens‘), if you click on the category name it will give you a list of all the posts assigned that category.  You can see the full list of category names about a third of the way down the short cuts column on the right hand side of most pages.  At present there are 39 categories, but more can be added as the need arises.  (You can suggest further categories by adding a comment below or by emailing us at parwich@hotmail.co.uk.)  (more…)

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So far our four most popular posts, since the site was launched, are all very different:

When is a neighbour not a neighbour?
243 hits

Easter Cards & Scrapbooking with the WI
233 hits

New “sounds” for church bells
205 hits

Carolyn’s Corner (No. 1)
167 hits

There are each by different bloggers and each on very different topics.  Two of them, the planning post and the April the First post, had a lot of hits when they first appeared and then fell by the wayside.  The Carolyn posts have an ongoing interest as people continue to wish her a steady recovery.  However the Scrapbooking post is the definite tortoise that looks like overtaking the hares.  Everyday there are a least two or three people come to PARWICH.ORG searching for ‘scrapbooking’ or related terms.  Do they spend time on our site or do they just move on?  If you are one of them you might like this link to a scrapbooking web ring or this to some related web rings.

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Most of you will have already mastered finding your way around PARWICH.ORG, but for those of you like me it may take a bit longer.  If you are feeling a bit bemused click here to visit our SITE MAP.  Not everyone will find it useful, but some of you may.  To find the SITE MAP again just go to the ELSEWHERE ON PARWICH.ORG… short cuts in the right hand side column.

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This afternoon we have just past the 20,000th hit on our website, which is really remarkable for such a small village.

I would particularly like to thank two people. Without Mike Atkinson’s vision and expertise we would probably never have had such an appealing, well laid out site, that is informative and easy to use. Mike does alot of work for us behind the scenes and sorts out most of our queries, so we should send massive thankyou’s to him. I would also like to thank Peter Trewhitt for his patience and clarity in teaching us how to master the different aspects of this site, Peter dedicates an amazing amount of his time in creating many of the static pages as well as constructing the Memorial Hall website.

I just hope that you are all enjoying this “blog” site as much as we are – please keep your posts coming.

If you want a post started (like this one) just email parwich@hotmail.co.uk with whatever you want us to put on.

If you want to make a comment on any of the post then just go to where it says No comment/1 comment, click and write your comment.

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Please note the new section in the right hand column called “Elsewhere on PARWICH.ORG”.  Hopefully there will be something here to interest you.  Also you may find the ‘Site Map’ helpful in finding your way around as the number of pages grows.

Check out the various new pages, including Photo Gallery, Jigsaws! and More Links, to see if you have photos or information we could add.  Let us know if there are more local topics that you would like information or new pages on.  Anyone can either add comments directly to the posts, or send in their own new posts via parwich@hotmail.co.uk.

Also see the ABOUT US page to find out more about how the site works.

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Our CALENDAR page has been expanded to cover events for the full year.

We have also added a second page, which lists Events beyond our immediate area.  Although this list is not intended to be exhaustively comprehensive, it does detail some of the larger local events that are still within easy travelling distance.  As always, do please contact us with any event which you would like to see added to this list.

Finally, we have also added a Calendar Archive, showing events which took place in past months.

You can find all three pages in the CALENDAR section of this site.

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Just to clarify something which has apparently been causing some confusion: when you see the words “No Comments” at the end of a post, it just means that nobody has left a comment as yet. It’s not an instruction, forbidding you to leave any comments!

If you want to leave the first comment on a post, then simply click on “No Comments”, and you’ll be taken to the comments form.

Once you have left your comment, you can return to the main blog by clicking Home or PARWICH.ORG, right at the top of the page.

It’s also worth pointing out that all green text on this site can be clicked.  Remember: if it’s in green, then it’s a link.

Also, a brief word on confidentiality. Although our system asks you to leave your e-mail address when making a comment, this is never displayed, and will never be revealed.

So please, comment with confidence!

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At some point later today (Friday), PARWICH.ORG will be clocking up its 10,000th page view. Considering that we launched the site less than four weeks ago, that’s a remarkable achievement, and one which surpasses even our wildest expectations.

If you had asked me to estimate our daily readership figures a couple of months ago, I would have guessed at a figure of between 80 and 100 page views per day, if we were lucky. In reality, we have been averaging between 250 and 400 views a day, hitting a record 525 views just two days ago.

The amount of support that village residents (as well as “ex-pats” and interested outsiders) have shown towards this little experiment of ours has been truly heartening. Almost every day, suggestions for articles are landing in our e-mail Inbox. Many of you have already written your own pieces for the site, or submitted your photos. More volunteers are joining our editorial team. Our comments boxes are becoming lively places in which to hang out, full of additional information, discussion, banter, and the occasional “heated debate”.

In short, you have chosen to embrace this site for what it was always intended to be: not only a “one-stop shop” for all village-related news and information, but also an interactive resource for the whole community, in which everyone can play a part.

The editorial team will be meeting up tomorrow morning, for the first time since Launch Day, to pool our ideas for forthcoming features and to plan the way forward. As well as the usual daily blog posts, you can expect many more pages to be added to the USEFUL INFO section of this site, offering more information and providing more space for local groups and societies to talk about their work. The CALENDAR section also be expanding, and our sister site for the Memorial Hall will be launching shortly.

There’s one more area in which some of you might be able to help. Despite our high traffic, we’re still a little short of incoming links from other sites. (OK, we’re very short of them.) If you run a website of your own, or if you know anyone else who does, then do please consider linking to us.

Now then – which of you is going to give us our 10,000th view? Over on the right hand column, you’ll find a little box marked BLOG STATS. Keep an eye on it during the course of Friday afternoon/evening – and as soon as you spot us reaching the magic number, then please let us know in the comments.

OK, Oscar acceptance speech over! Back to business!

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