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)
Congratulations on a great year of keeping us up-to-date and talking about town issues. You’re doing a wonderful job!
You do a great job Beth! Keep up the awesome work!
Happy Anniversay. You have done well, thank you.
Thank you for the incredible service you provide to the community through this blog. Your coverage of the election was excellent and I love the improvements you have made this year as well, especially in connecting with local organizations and charities.
Good job! Good ideas!
As one who in the past has been a principal news-gatherer for the town (when I worked for the MWDN and we actually had a whole edition for the three “boros”–north, south, and west, I know that some of the smallest announcements can take up the most time… press releases without a date or time or location… many things to check.
But hardest of all is trying to report on a local event/meeting and get all the news without having anything be too long! Writing long is easy enough. Writing short is a much bigger challenge and you’re doing well.
Thanks very much!
Donna
Thank you Beth and congratulations. A lot of people appreciate what you are doing. I do have one minor suggestion for the website. I am always drawn to the “Recent Comments” on the right side of the main page. However, if you’re away for a day or two, and then a bunch of comments get posted all at the same time, the top 5 are not helpful as #6 falls off the list.
Yes, I do know you have a Recent Comments link with the last 25 on another page, but that is not visible nor obvious to get to, all the time.
My suggestion is, instead of 5 most recent comments (listed individually), to have “Recent Topics with New Comments” so that the top 5 titles appear, no matter how many people have commented in that topic. Maybe even increase to 10 most recent. In any case, that allows a comment on an older topic to appear chatter in current topics, for instance. Anyway, just a suggestion.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree with your complaint – especially as one person making 3 quick comments can quickly bury other comments recently made.
I don’t think I can program the 1st option you suggested. And I think the alternative of listing 10 pushes advertisers down too far. So, I just changed settings to a middle ground of 8 comments. You can now see 3 more recent comments than you used to. Hope that helps a little.
Beth,
I’m so grateful to you for picking up the My Southborough ball and running with it. No one knows better than I do how much time, thought, and effort goes into maintaining this site, and you have done it admirably over the past year. Thank you for continuing to provide this wonderful community resource. Here’s to year two!
Your friend,
Susan
Kudos, Beth, for keeping us in the loop on so much of what is going on! (I am especially grateful to Susan for starting the whole thing!) We would not be as informed about what is going on in our little boro if it wasn’t for these two ladies. It is appreciated more than you know, especially the past few months with all the election/candidate coverage. I am particularly grateful for the honest reporting of the facts and no personal spin on any issue…sure wish other media could be as forthcoming and unbiased! Keep up the good work, we are truly grateful for your presence and this vehicle for keeping us aware of what is going on :-)