Welcome to the September 2007 issue of Great Baddow Online Newsletter

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Introduction

For newcomers to the site, this newsletter is circulated monthly to registered site members and friends, to supplement information on the site itself. Please forward to colleagues and other interested individuals in order to publicise the site.If you are a recent newcomer to the site, welcome - your readership is appreciated.

Recent developments

The overhaul commenced last month has continued and new features this month are:

• Updated content for the home page and new styling presentation
• A feature about the Great Baddow brewery
• Creation of  a "Have your say section"
• A new extensive analysis of site statistics

Home page

We have now updated the home page! After approximately 18 months with static text, it was looking dated. In order to encourage visitors to browse the rest of the site we will now update the home page at least monthly and include more relevant information and current news about the site.

The previous month we introduced a selection of random images to accompany the original text. These have now been moved to top of page and hopefully will interest local users with a different set of photos on each visit.  At present there are 72 combinations possible so the chance of getting the same combination twice in succession is relatively low.  We are considering adding/changing the set of stock images over time in order to maintain variety.

Great Baddow Brewery

This feature article on the local brewery was added under local history in mid August.  Based on information held at both the Essex Records Office and the Great Baddow Oral History, it provides a short review of the brewery contribution to the village, and its owners.

Removal of old, inactive content

Some out of date material has been removed or relocated. The content of the original welcome page has been moved to "About the site" and the original discussion forums have been removed.

"Have your say"

Last month we introduced a new feedback form which has subsequently been updated to allow identification of areas of the site on which respondents may wish to comment. In parallel, we have now introduced a "Have your say" section to encourage users to provide comment on issues of concern to the village; e.g the planning application to extend the opening hours for the kiosk at the Vineyards.

Statistics

As  state last month, we are no longer publishing statistics about the site within the newsletter but have created a new navigational folder on the site itself which holds much more detailed information. Data is provided for each month since August 2006 and includes summaries of visitor numbers, pages visited, browser and operating systems. 

Search for ancestral history

As outlined last month, a contact from the USA, Shawn Pease of Massachusetts, recently contacted us. Shawn  is seeking ancestral details for his family and would like to correspond with anyone who may have knowledge of his family history which he has traced back to the 17th century.  He is the descendant of one John Pease, who was born in Great Baddow in 1604. According to the records he is the 8^th great grandson of John Pease, or ten generations removed from Great Baddow.  Anyone who may know of his family is invited to contact me and I will put you in touch.   More information is on the website.

Developments next month

• Introduction of featured articles
• Longer term updating
• A review of navigation
• Further removal of redundant content
• Removal of old discussion forums and replacement by a “Have your say” section
• Removal of statistics from the newsletter and provision of a more comprehensive set on the site itself.

Introduction of featured articles

We plan to include some new featured articles over the next few months, and intend to invite participation by various village organisations and individuals. Examples of the possible features include:

• Local clubs and societies; their role and contribution to village life
• Charitable organisations; what they do and how we can help
• Further topics about local history
• Mini profiles of well known residents!

Longer term updating

Although we do not plan at present to make any further significant changes to the site, some updating of older items may be carried out to make improve the style and presentation of some frequently accessed pages and improve overall appearance.  This includes an update to the Advertisements section of the site to include an index page.

Review of navigation

The order in which links to content appear in the left hand menu impacts on the way in which users interact with the site.  We intend to review the order of presentation so that the more popular choices, based on analysis of the site statistics, are ranked appropriately.

Further removal of  redundant content 

Some older content remains and this will be subject to further review and possible removal over the next month.

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