The Third and final part of this longer article explores the value that Tarvin Online brings to the Community of Tarvin and the benefits of having the website.
Part 3 What has Tarvin Online done for us?
In the previous articles, we examined why Tarvin Online was set up in the first place, what it was intended to do, and how the web team manages the site and its dedicated social media pages and posts. In this article, we look at why having a Village website is valuable and what it offers residents.
Tarvin Online is effectively like having a continuously updated online "Village Noticeboard" at your fingertips (for those using a PC or tablet) or in your pocket (if you access it on a Smart Phone).
The advantage of having such a noticeboard online is the immediacy and timeliness of information. If you want to get a message out to Tarvin Residents or promote an event, then Tarvin Online can provide a platform to do that within hours, making it more immediate than Newsletters or Magazines.
Facebook, X, and Bluesky feeds can offer this, but they have one significant disadvantage; They are not easily searchable in the future.
An article on a website will remain on the website for as long as the site is live and hosted.
In addition, the directories and calendar are a wealth of information which helps Tarvin residents and visitors to connect with local businesses, clubs, societies and churches. In order to keep these up to date, the Webteam ideally needs those organisations to let them know when any relevant information changes. We have done several campaigns, reaching out to directory entry owners to update them, but this requires a significant amount of effort and time. If you notice any out-of-date information on these directories, please let us know by email to editor@tarvinonline.org.
Tarvin Online has met its original brief of:
- Co-ordination and communication of Tarvin Village facilities
- Promotion of new facilities and forthcoming events
- Improved information on local businesses, services and organisations
- Free to access
- Dynamic, broad in content & up to date, encouraging regular visits
- Links to existing societies, services and business websites
- A voice for all residents on a wide range of topics, some serious, others amusing
- A source of local, West Cheshire and National information relevant to Tarvin residents
Tarvin Online Response to Coronavirus – COVID-19
At the beginning of 2020, the global pandemic arrived, leading to the subsequent lockdown in March of that year. The value of having an online village noticeboard was particularly noted during the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and early 2021.
Tarvin Online's web team embraced Zoom and held several online meetings throughout the pandemic to discuss how the website could help residents during lockdown. We felt a particular responsibility to "up our game and do whatever we could to help our neighbours during this challenging time".
The link below is a summary of a search for COVID articles on Tarvin Online
https://www.tarvinonline.org/search-page-1-Y292aWQ=-1.html
The Web team primarily aimed to entertain residents while keeping them informed about how the lockdown was affecting our area and how they could obtain the information they needed about the local area.
Advice from the government was constantly changing, as was the "Alert" status of residential areas dependent upon infection rates. Here's an example of one of the Covid articles.
https://www.tarvinonline.org/newsroom/covid-alert-level-2-quick-guide.html
Tarvin Online made also sure that information about vaccination clinics was regularly posted.
The Tarvin Virtual Christmas Market
In Summer 2020, the Christmas Market group reached out to Tarvin Online for help as the market was clearly not likely to take place that year. The result was the Tarvin Virtual Christmas Market.
We set up a separate section of the website with a permanent page dedicated to each of our "Stallholders' and a link to their business and how they could serve customers waiting for the existing lockdown restrictions. As one of the founding principles of the site was to support local businesses to thrive, Tarvin Online leapt at the chance to do this. As this was quite a significant undertaking, Fi Miles from the Tarvin Christmas Market group joined the Tarvin Webteam to help with this initiative and has been on the team ever since.
Tarvin History Revealed
Tarvin Webteam was contacted by Margaret Dixon of the Tarvin History Society. Margaret has created several Scrapbooks of all articles and snippets in local newspapers which mention Tarvin. these are a fantastic resource of events in Tarvin over the years and have been used to create a series of articles that we initially called "Tarvin History Revealed". Brian has often complained about this title, but it has kind of "stuck".
Of all the articles we publish, these have proved to be some of the most popular. All of them are still available on the site. If the Website were to close, this would be lost, and the Scrapbooks would remain in a cupboard, unseen and unremembered.
Finally:
Tarvin Webteam, past and present, hope that Tarvin residents, past and present, have enjoyed what we have produced and will continue to appreciate and cherish this unique and irreplaceable history of Tarvin Village.
Use the website's search facility to see what you can find! Note that the search facility is available only on the desktop version of the site.
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