The Icing on the Village Website Cake

We posted an item of Village News on the Barrow website in March. “Barrow's award-winning leicestershirevillages website www.barrowuponsoar.org.uk again won the coveted Best Community Engagement Oscar at the leicestershirevillages presentation celebrations at Beaumanor Hall last Wednesday 24th March. As well as this, John Nurse, one of Barrow's site administrators, was presented with not one but two further awards…”

Immediately after the posting, we received the following email from Phoenix, Arizona:

I just read the following on your famous website :

“But the icing on the cake came when John Nurse, one of Barrow's site administrators, was presented with not one but two further awards: Community Commitment Award 2010 and the Most Postings Award 2010. He made over 1000 postings during last year to Barrow's village website. He has already built up the most amazing array of Family History records (eg births, marriages and deaths, census records etc) as well as putting on over 1500 photographs of Barrow and its residents. The site is visited by people all over the world. Small wonder that the site administrators frequently receive appreciative emails from Canada, New Zealand, America etc.”

Please count this as one more appreciative email, this time from Arizona. I am thrilled with the magnificent manner in which you and so many others of the Land of my Ancestors are making the Family History data available to us. I and my family will continue to search the records as more become available and as we continue to trace our roots and our family histories.

Chuck Bowler, Phoenix, Arizona

We’ve now made a Bouquets and Brickbats page so that we can record tributes like this one. And since our last BV report, we have introduced lots of new pages and added masses more local information such as “Accommodation in and around Barrow” and “Places to Visit from Barrow”. Most village groups now have their own pages or links to their own websites. This includes the new BRAG campaign pages, Allotment pages, Open Gardens and the Youth Action Group. John has transcribed all the available census data and most of the records of births, marriages and deaths and also made paper copies that are available in the library.

And the latest arrival: a link to a Barrow upon Soar Village Face Book. So there should be something for everyone.

Which explains why our Barrow website clocked up over 46,000 hits during the past 3 months. That’s nearly twice as many as any other leicestershirevillages.com site.

We’re always looking for new ideas so if there’s something you would like to see in Barrow’s website, just phone me on 07718 153117 or email Rodgers_david@hotmail.com

Judith Rodgers