As we come to the end of publishing +50 stories over the week on VentnorBlog, we realise that we’ve hit quite a few anniversaries in the last seven days.
Gathering them all into one story isn’t intended to come across as boastful – it’s just that all of these things seem to have converged on the same week over the years.
Five years on Twitter
We were amazed to see that VB has been on Twitter for over five years – but as is often said, time flies when you’re having fun.
There’s a certain knack to getting your message across in the 140 characters that Twitter gives you, one that we’re constantly trying to evolve.
21,000 tweets later, we’ve certainly had plenty of practice and find the social network a powerful medium to share our news – and to hear the views of other Islanders on. Thanks to the nearly 3,500 followers for taking an interest.
Five years of live reporting
Another first for us from five years ago was our first session of reporting live from a council meeting (we now have over 70 entries in our live coverage category).
At the time of the first report, VB commentor Mark said, “Congratulations, Simon, just brilliant. It will be interesting to see how the other Press Channels react to this!!!”
Well they did … eventually. It took them about four years, but now IW Radio sometimes do Tweets from the council meetings as they’re happening and the CP get their reports of the meetings out a lot quicker than they ever used to.
VB presents ….
Four years ago this week saw us curating and organising our first art exhibition on the Isle of Wight, VentnorBlog Presents …
We’d been so impressed with the artistic talent we’d come across, that we felt compelled to do more than just write about it.
Selection was tough, but we finally got down to four we felt had a lot of talent to celebrate, giving them the opportunity to show their work to a wider audience.
The fabulous four included; photographer Julian Winslow – who has since become a good friend and colleague; photographer and artist Abigail MacRobert – also now a friend who is doing really valuable work with disadvantaged teenagers; Ventnor-based artist Tania Dixcey; and finally the very talented artist and all round nice guy Michael Forrest – whose outstanding work never fails impress us.
The event, held at the Bonchurch Manor Hotel (thanks to the immense generosity of Mark and Shuba) saw over 400 visitors over three days. We were also fortunate enough to have support from the Ventnor Brewery, Isle of Wight Cheese, The Garlic Farm, butcher Paul Murphy and even Hursts!
The dear old County Press ran a short piece promoting the exhibition, and made us giggle with their pithy title, ‘Ventnor bloggers get real with first exhibition’.
Ejected from IW Coroner’s Court
Moving forward a few years and we hit the one two year anniversary this week of VentnorBlog being ejected from the Isle of Wight Coroner’s court.
We don’t wish to draw attention to the case that was being heard at the time (out of respect for the family involved), but news of the unlawful blocking of VentnorBlog spread far and wide.
After a groundswell of support from across the UK and Europe (unsolicited contact from media lawyers, an MEP, the head of the NUJ (National Union of Journalists) and Big Brother Watch amongst others) Isle of Wight Coroner John Matthews had to finally admit that he’d acted unlawfully by ejecting Simon from what should be an open court.
Breaking the 60,000 comments barrier
Finally and not exactly an anniversary, but earlier in the week you may have noticed that VB readers busted through 60,000+ comments mark! That’s just on stories published on the VB Website, goodness knows how many we’ve had on Facebook.
Community engagement on VB is something that we’re particularly proud of and continue to encourage.
We believe that we have a great mix of commenters from all political and social backgrounds and have been told that other South Coast news publications (from across the water) envy the quality of many of the well-informed comments left on VB.
So well done all of you who take part and thanks for your continued support.
