History of Tarvin Online – Part 1

Tarvin Online Launch Celebration

Since its launch in 2013, the Tarvin Online website has provided a unique and irreplaceable history of the village. Not only through over 4,000 articles but also through galleries of images of the village and its people, past and present.

Tarvin Online has been in operation for almost 12 years. In that time, it has accumulated a treasure trove of articles, images, and posts about the village, its history, residents, businesses, churches, clubs, and societies.

We have been reviewing the website and realised what a legacy of the village it is. Unlike the Tarvin Online Facebook or X (Twitter) feed, the Tarvin Online website holds these articles, allowing them to be searched and 'mined' as long as the website is live and hosted.

The Website started as a result of the Tarvin Parish Plan. From the very beginning, Tarvin Online and its dedicated social media pages have been run by a small team of volunteers who manage the editor@tarvinonline inbox, generate articles using information provided by local residents and contributors, disseminate information relevant to Tarvin residents, and try to keep the calendar and directories up to date.

Over the next few days, we will publish a longer article in three parts outlining how the Website came about, and we hope this will offer an understanding of how the Website offers something more than its social media channels.

Part One

History and Legacy of Tarvin Online

In 2009, following a public meeting hosted by the Tarvin Parish Council and a questionnaire delivered to over 1,200 households, the Tarvin Parish Plan was published in September 2011.

The "Community Information" section of the questionnaire asked how people got their local information. Nearly 25% of the 1098 respondents said they got their local information from village notice boards. Other sources listed were Tarvin Times (Parish Council Newsletter), Grapevine (St Andrews Church magazine), Tarporley Talk (a printed advertising magazine), and shop posters. Social media was not mentioned in the questionnaire or the published plan, despite Facebook going live five years earlier.

One "high priority, short timescale" action identified from the analysis of the plan was to "Investigate various media options to improve communication throughout Tarvin Parish."

The Tarvin Online web team applied for and successfully obtained a Lottery grant, which enabled them to have a professional Website built by our partners, Then Media. The website was launched in June 2013. It was delivered by a team of volunteers and overseen by a Tarvin Parish Plan Implementation Group.

A further Lottery grant was obtained in 2014 to further develop the website.

https://www.tarvinonline.org/p/newsroom/big-lottery-fund-supports-tarvinonline.html

As the article about this second grant points out, a major reason that the grant was awarded was that the Tarvin parish community has embraced the site to:

• Promote club/society events;
• Promote local businesses;
• Catch up on news from the village;
• Run campaigns to improve village life and
• Just have a bit of fun.

The Lottery Grants enabled us to Build and develop the website. Regular Parish Council grants have been applied for and awarded each year. These have paid for annual hosting, the domain and maintenance each year since the launch of the site.

Early Articles

The first article on the website on 6th June 2013 was about the Launch of Superfast Broadband in Cheshire. Along with every article posted since then, it is still available on the website -

https://www.tarvinonline.org/newsroom/superfast-broadband-launch.html

Other articles that month included -

Tarvin: a hotbed of crime?

https://www.tarvinonline.org/newsroom/tarvin-hotbed-of-crime.html

New Windows for the Community Centre

https://www.tarvinonline.org/newsroom/new-windows-for-community-centre.html

Community Centre Film Night Success
https://www.tarvinonline.org/newsroom/family-film-night-success.html

A report on the first of the regular Film Nights at the Community Centre when 150 people came to watch The Croods!

We hope that this article has been a reminder or, if you were not aware of how it began, an insight into how Tarvin Online came about and what a valuable resource it is to our community.

Part 2 to be published tomorrow...