History of Tarvin Online – Part 2

This is the second part of a longer article split into three parts: Outlining: How the website began and why, How it is run and managed and the benefits that Tarvin Online offers the Community

Part 2 How is Tarvin Online Managed?

There are three main facets to the website:

• Articles
• Community Calendar and
• Directories

Articles:

The Tarvin Webteam creates articles based on the copy sent to editor@tarvinonline.org by local residents, clubs, societies and businesses. These articles are published on a regular basis (daily where possible), promoting local events, providing information about clubs and societies, disseminating information useful and relevant to Tarvin residents, and providing entertainment and historical information about the area. The team also keep our eyes and ears open and publish articles on anything we feel would be relevant to Tarvin

Community Calendar

Local groups, clubs, churches, and businesses email information about events that they would like us to include on the Tarvin Online Calendar. These can be one-off events, such as performances at the community centre, fetes and festivals, quiz nights, or regular weekly meetings, such as Toddler groups, Bingo nights, or Yoga classes.

Directories:

Tarvin Online has a detailed menu of directories allowing anyone to search for businesses, community information or local services. The Web team are responsible for keeping this up to date, but this relies on users and residents letting us know if there are any entries that are inaccurate.

Hosting and Support

All websites are hosted, and their security certificate must be renewed annually. The Tarvin Online website is hosted by local company – ThenMedia. They also hold the tarvinonline.org domain name registration on our behalf and ensure that relevant security certificates are renewed annually. This helps to ensure that the website remains safe for our users.

ThenMedia has developed a cloud-based software application that enables the Tarvin Webteam to manage incoming emails, directories, image galleries, and calendars, as well as to create articles for publication. ThenMedia has supported Tarvin Online since 2013 and continues to do so today, backed by an annual grant to Tarvin Online from the Parish Council's 'Community Grant Aid' fund.

The owners of ThenMedia have experience in delivering a similar solution for their own village and other parishes, such as Tattenhall.

The Tarvin Webteam

The initial three-man volunteer web team of Arnie Sheppard, Phil Miles, and Brian Hardacre worked hard every day to keep the website up to date. As a result, the average number of visitors to the website was about 160 to 180 per day in the first year. Other volunteers have supported regular meetings to discuss the website's development throughout its existence.

Between 2016 and 2020, Arnie and Brian kept the site going with an article every single day, even when Covid 19 meant there was a lot less going on.

Fi Miles joined in 2020 to plan the promotion of Tarvin's 'Virtual Christmas Market' during the Pandemic. She stayed on and became a volunteer Editor. In 2021, together with Then Media, Fi, Brian, and Arnie upgraded Tarvin Online to a more up-to-date platform, modernising the site, improving web rankings, and updating the directories. Arnie stepped down from the team later in 2021.

Yurii Platika decided to make Tarvin a home for his family when he moved here from Ukraine in 2022 after reading articles on Tarvin Online. While living here, he helped to develop our social media presence. He has now moved to Spain.

Tim Bates joined in 2023. With his knowledge of website development, in the last 18 months, he has helped develop the website even further. Tim will be stepping away as an active Webteam member to focus on other Volunteering activities.

Brian stepped back from editing after 11 years in 2024 but is still involved from time to time, offering his extensive experience and knowledge of the history of the Website with the one remaining Team member.

We have a small group of regular contributors, without whom the web team could not have managed to keep the flow of articles coming.

Early Days

An article in July 2014 gave an update on how Tarvin Online had delivered in its first year. https://www.tarvinonline.org/newsroom/tarvinonline-your-website.html

A framework was established based on the following objectives -

• Co-ordination and improved communication of existing facilities in Tarvin
• 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 for events and news, 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

The Tarvin Online web team also started posting on a dedicated Facebook social media page and reported an "excellent following".

Q: How does the Website differ from Tarvin Online Social Media channels?
A:While the Facebook posts are based on original articles from the website, they are not able to retain the legacy, information, and images and, therefore, cannot effectively provide the same amazing resource we have on the website. They are also not conducive to longer articles such as this.

Tarvin Online – Independent of but supported by our Parish Council

I'll allow one of my predecessors to explain this as I couldn't really put it better myself...
An article in August 2014 explained how the Tarvin Parish Council section of the website was set up.

It stressed that "in the same way that the Parish Council does not influence or control the content of the Tarvin Online website, the Tarvin web team has no the Parish Council section of involvement with the website nor any capability for amending that content."
https://www.tarvinonline.org/newsroom/tarvinonline-homepage-final-look.html

Q: If Tarvin Online is independent of the Parish Council, why are the Parish Council web pages on Tarvin Online?
A: For practical reasons, when Tarvin Online was launched, the Parish Council website was hosted by the same external provider as Tarvin Online. However, despite a similar look and feel, the Tarvin Webteam have no involvement with the Parish Council section of the website nor any capability for amending the content, and similarly, the Parish Council does not have access to the Tarvin Online area. Therefore, we are independent of them, although we do rely on their grant to Pay for our Web hosting services, as previously explained.