1st Bloggeversary: Enhancements and feedback

One year ago today, Susan announced that I would be taking over this blog. That day, I ran my first official My Southborough post.

So I guess that makes this my first anniversary on the blog.

In reflecting on the past year, I’ve been thinking about the work I’ve done to enhance the site. And I’m wondering what else you may be looking for.

You may not have noticed some of the changes. Here are resources at your finger tips you may be overlooking:

Enhancements made this year

• Event Calendar:

In the past, Susan hadn’t been able to keep the calendar up. (It is time consuming.) So you may not realize that I started to.

I do my best to fill the calendar with events and meetings in/related to Southborough. You can find it by clicking Calendar at the top. (Or just click here.) If there is ever something you want me to add, shoot me an email.

• Government “Agenda Highlights”:

The blog always provided a list of  town government meetings with agenda links. Since most of you don’t have the inclination to read each agenda, I started relating the “Agenda Highlights”.

These are just the items that jump out at me as things readers may care about. It’s my attempt to address many readers’ past concerns “The town decided what? When did that happen? Why didn’t we know?”

Since boards only need to give 48 hours notice, and I run posts at the beginning of the week, I don’t catch everything. But each Monday, you can take a look to see if town committees are scheduled to discuss or vote on issues you care about.

• Community Organization Profiles:

I ran a series of these last year. You can find them under the features menu. (Or just click here.) I wanted to help town charities/organizations reach the community.

Each profile explains their mission, past good works, challenges, and how you can help or join. (I sent out a slew of requests but didn’t hear back from everyone. If you have an organization whose profile you’d like to share with readers, email me.)

• Special pages:

Recently, I created temporary special pages for the Town Meeting, the election, and information on the Main Street project. The idea was to help residents easily find all the information they needed for casting votes this spring.

Look for more of these in the future before town meetings and elections.

• Increased charity support:

In addition to blogging about charities and fundraisers, I created free ads for Southborough Food Pantry and Southborough Youth and Family Services programs.

Use the links in the sidebar to find out more about how you can help their missions.

What should be next?

What do you think is missing from the blog? Is there a resource, easy link, or page you’d like to see? Is there an area of interest that you think needs more attention? 

Post a comment below, or send an email. (Keep in mind that I’m a part-time, one woman show. So don’t go overboard!)

For this topic or any others, you can always email me at mysouthborough@gmail.com.

*OK, I had written children’s book blog posts in the past. But that was as a guest and those posts were originally for the library’s website. May 21, 2013 was the first time I wrote exclusively for My Southborough about Southborough.

(Image posted to Flickr by Benson Kua)