How time flies. On a personal level it has been an up and down year, illness having sidelined me for several months but am getting there once more, and have found a new passion for the website albeit for now a reduced input. Am slowly building up to more input and man hours. Would like to thank the team for carrying me over the past few months. Covid has certainly has made its impact.
Sadly at this point in time we have not arranged a meet up for 2023. Fingers crossed we can organise something for 2024.
The website is continuing to attract some donations – an amazing achievement considering the current economic situation. Our account is still pretty healthy and we have enough in reserve to keep the site online for a few years yet.
We are adding to the content but at a slowed rate, if we can educate our submitters, transcribers and OPCs to use the templates we could upload content a lot faster. Good news is we have someone who has volunteered to help out with the formatting etc. so hopefully new items will be available soon. And thanks to Val Everson for getting stuck in with some of this.
The census project organised by John Pope is still on going and of course we now have the 1921 return to try and incorporate. The We Will Remember Them project is still growing thanks to the eagle eye of Martin Barrett who spends a lot of time researching and checking for the brave men and women who lost their lives in service of their country.
Parish pages and photo-galleries continue to grow thanks to the team of OPCs and transcribers.
Some pages are still undergoing a rebuild – sadly not enough hours in a day to complete this quickly. As they say Rome wasn’t built in a day and if a job is worth doing it is worth doing well.
Am seriously thinking of letting my spare room for free to people who would like to get involved with the website and get free holiday accommodation in return. I find showing people what needs to be done is easier when face to face with someone.
I have continued to collect a few more books and postcards for the project but there doesn’t seem to be so many available for purchase at affordable prices lately.
I will end with just two more items. Firstly if you are planning a field trip please stay safe and make sure you have everything you need before you set out. Please feel free to download our Field Trip Essentials List from the website.
Secondly it may have passed you all bye that here in the UK we are celebrating a special event on May 6th. King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla will be crowned at Westminster Abbey. Of course Queen Camilla has close links to Wiltshire so a little added interest for our project.
We wish them both a long and meaningful reign and hope they can continue to serve their country with the passion and loyalty that Queen Elizabeth II left as her legacy to us as a nation. Long live the King.
