The people's group campaigning for The Wrekin
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I'm putting together a map of the tracks and walks and everything!
HOW TOS
- How to join up to this site: it's open, any one can become a member. We totally hide your email address from spam bots too. Just join up!
- How to post a news item to the front page: you'd need to be a member, then post one. It won't get to the front till an editor approves it (just so there's no funny biz ;-)))
- How to add a discussion group message: best place for questions!!! Again you need to be a member, then post a discussion group message. Remember to click the email reply box so you'll not need to keep returning to see if anyone has answered your mesage.
- How to leave a comment: just click the greyed out comment link below any news item! If you're already logged in as a member this website will remember you, if not add your email address and name and you'll be quickly signed up.
- How to alter your preferences: when logged in go to your Prefs page. Tell us a bit about yourselves. Nice to know who's here.
An independent group of individuals who share a love of The Wrekin
and a determination to see it preserved for the good of its
communities, landscape, wildlife and heritage.
Read more about Purpose, principles, activities and structure.
Some promotions about The Wrekin:
The Wrekin Hill
;newWindow.focus())
This book is available for £12.99 from all good booksellers and the Halfway
House after the launch on 8th April 2007, or direct from Allan himself, in
which case send a Sterling cheque for £12.99 made payable to ALLAN FROST at
1 Buttermere Drive, Priorslee, Telford, Shropshire, TF2 9RE, United Kingdom.
Overseas buyers should send an International Money Order for that amount
(there is no additional charge for postage for this book).
Wrekin Wraiths, Rebels and Romans;newWindow.focus())
The book is available from all good booksellers and the Halfway House on
The Wrekin after the official launch at the end of October 2006 or direct
from Allan himself, in which case please send a Sterling cheque for £5.99
made payable to ALLAN FROST at 1 Buttermere Drive, Priorslee, Telford,
Shropshire, TF2 9RE, United Kingdom. If you live outside the United Kingdom,
send an International Money Order for £6.99 made payable to Allan Frost at
the above address.
Fern Ticket;newWindow.focus())
George Evans, the venerable chairman of All
Friends Around The Wrekin has a booklet out. Already on its second
reprint and the only book about The Wrekin, like ever!
Join George for a walk up and around The Wrekin, learn all the important landmarks and all the historical aspects of The Wrekin.
BTW: A fern ticket is the mythical permit to adventure on The Wrekin or
in its magical forest. Couples spotted leaving a dance at the Forest
Glen were asked. "Have you got your fern ticket?"
Wrekin Recipes;newWindow.focus())
Recipes taught to the pupils of Wrekin Road School in 1904 with
Emmie Teece's memories of the Wellington area in the years before
World War One.
£2.99 All proceeds to the Wrekin Appeal
Available from : Langlands Records, Wellington; Shropshire Wildlife Trust, Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury
How2s and site info
We'll use this to form a consensus.
If you have any comments to make, please add them via the greyed out text under each news item. If you want to post something to the front page, you can, but an editor will need to approve it. If you can't do any of these things email me and I'll add it myself.
We are an open groups, and an open website.
In this light, and here and now I'm calling on all those that were there last night, who belong to committees, to councils, to quangos, to sub-committee to publish all they have.
In particular, but not limited to:
- All surveys of the visitors to The Wrekin.
- The feasibility study for the shop/toilet.
- Tourism reports.
I'd also like to point out that this site, is cared for by me, usually updated by me, but it is open, totally open to anybody. (See the how to to find how you too, can easily post to the front page.)
In this light, and here and now, I'm calling on all those bods from last night, and you'll excuse me if I mention no names, not having a head for them, to post here: debate, discussions, reports, questions, ideas, dreams, jokes, deep links to similar posted in their own websites.
Let's get the news flowing!
If, as past of your information work flow you could CC this website, yes, you can email directly into this website, that would be superb, and an example for other quangos to follow.
(No excuses regarding non-teck! If you can send an email or CC, that's all that's needed.)
Let's get this blog to be a news flow of everything there is about The Wrekin. Of debate, of history, of questions and news.
If anyone needs help, I'll gladly, and lovingly train them to email stuff—if you can send an email, you're qualified, or to use the web interface. My phone number is 07886 301 767
We've 121 so far.
However, some don't have email addresses and others are using busted email addresses. I don't know if they were miss entered, misspelled or expired.
But, I get bounces back from these broken addresses, so I think it's time to clear up our member list. These means deleting people!
If you know any of these, tell them to rejoin, or email me, or something.
And remember, anyone can post a news item to the front page, but you need to join up first. (And keep it on topic.)
- Graham Hardy
- Jon Watkiss
- Revd Bridget Wollard
- george kinnell
- Alan Fisher
- Mrs C Felgate
- Bob Jago
- Nathan Crick
- pinky
- Pat Fairclough
- Martin Starbuck
- Eve Clevenger
- Tom Taylor
- Tom Heaton
- Bob Justham
- Jane (The Kyn)
- Tim Wakefield
- Richard Lees
Still, one hundred members or there abouts is pretty good going, in nearly two years. Now if only I could get more of them/you posting.
Latest to sign up are the delectable Jane from The Kinnersley Arms in Leighton, and Pete Lambert the Shropshire Wildlife Trust's forestry geezer.
Welcome one and all. Don't worry, your email address is safe here. Only me and this site knows it. No spammers can get it.
Source: Short Story competition seeking submissions
Link: http://www.clickpress.com/releases/Detailed/961005cp.shtml
Internationally-famed Wellington (Shropshire) Town Council Short Story Competition in 11th successful year. Open for new submissions for 2005 competition."
I found this little snip in the aggregator, there's a load of rubbish, but now and then a useful item. Just in case you come here and see no new news, there is fresh stuff, every hour. I cast a search out into the blogosphere for 'Wrekin' and 'Shropshire.'
Yesterday, at around 5am the Nottingham machine died. Sadly. Disastrously. Not only for us, but many, many other people who host sites and parts of sites there.
Throughout yesterday, I watched the status report wondering when I should bite the bullet and move our bits to another hoster. Pipex is probably the largest in the UK, this doesn't mean to say they are the best.
Earlier this morning, I was tormented for things still looked bad, and started getting us organised to move. And then... YaY! Everything once more is working.
Sorry about the minor outage, all's well once more.
I was carrying on a discussion, behind the scenes which I was to mail to all the editors of this site, then, I as I started adding more email addresses from others who had contacted me, I figure, "may was well do this out in the open."
So this link is to a discussion where I describe the aggregator page, and call for good words to search for, in the millions of news and other sources. Please join in the discussion, even if you just email me.
I also ask for links to Wrekin general or specific sites. We really could be the source for all Wrekin, no matter how obtuse. So, please, any stories, links, memories, yarns, whatever, gerr-em-in :-) Sign up if you're not already a member, or log in if you are. Then, post in the discussion group.
And check back regularly (it changes every hour) to the aggregator page. Add it to your bookmarks.
Also, please suggest in these comments, some Wrekinish words to search the aggregator for. Let's see what can turn up.
Recently, an editor contacted me to ask that I delete some of the links in the referers page, this story is an explanation of this war I'm constantly fighting and hopefully warns any timid souls against clicking on 'intriguing links' that can be found with in the very useful and otherwise interesting referer page.
Please note, this referer page is autogenerated every 24 hours and the links in there have nothing to do with All Friends Round The Wrekin.
This news item, was pinched (blogged) out of the blogosphere. Though not related to our cause, serves to demonstrate the capabilities IMHO of the blogosphere picking up news, otherwise missed. You can find our fishing nets, cast out into the wide world of blog stories and blog people, here, in our aggregator. And see more mentions of the word 'Shropshire' and 'Wrekin' which is rarer.
Rare. Let's get out there with postings about the Wrekin! More memories, pictures... Calling all members, start posting!
Each hour the news aggregator scans subscribed feeds for new stories, which are displayed on this page from newest to oldest."
"Wot's an aggregator, Steve?"
It's a service, that check certain news feeds every hour. If there's any new news we'll display it at the top of this page.
It'll change every hour, and you can post directly from it by hitting
the post button. You should certainly bookmark it and check back
regularly. By way of explanation one of our many feeds is here.
I've subscribed to feeds from the BBC, searches for 'Wrekin' and 'Shropshire.' If the Shropshire Star had a feed I could sub to that. Alas... So, I've sub'd to a feed who scrapes them, it's not perfect, but it'll do.
Now, to find more RSS feeds we'll be interested in.
| Wooo-W! As they say on the Sopranos. Where did all this traffic come from? I don't know. But I'm going to find out. 3,000 hits in one hour is too much. Then, for it to disappear again? Nah, got to be some 'bot. Some errant spider, which will need banning. [UPDATE:] The errant probable non human robot, came from this IP based in Harlow 213.162.112.128 But it seems to be located in Holland Oh, well. Stranger things have happened at sea. I've banned this IP from our machine. More on topic The Wrekin posts coming tomorrow. |
be on topic! Don't let your email app put a signature at the foot! And
don't tell any spammers, else I'll have to shut it down a little, which
will take some of the fun out of it.
Oh, and the title of your email will be the title of your posting.
And make sure that you send in plain text, not in HTML. And as yet no attachments. Later, if you've got a mobile phone that can send pix... Yes, we'll have that too
If you haven't yet signed up, remember, this site guards your email address from spam harvesters, so it's safe to join with a good, current email address.
If you are a member, and not yet logged in, do that, with your email address and password that you received in the confirmation email, you needn't log out again, if you're computer is not shared, if it is shared, best to log in and out to use the site. If you want to change your password, go here.
Try it. Don't worry there's nothing you can break. If you do make some thing that's not neat and tidy, I'll come across and clean it up. So, just try it. Even if you haven't any good news right now, post a new news item call it 'Test' or something like that and we'll delete it. Get ready, you never know when you'll hear something down the corner shop that we'd all like the hear.
 | Nice to see that traffic
is slowly building from zero to 50 or so page views an hour. And that
we're in Google already, this is faster than usual, it normally takes a
month or so. Not only that but I see from our referers that someone is reading this site via blogLines, an RSS feed reading service. See? We're ever so cool and techno-hip, we have our own RSS feed (overview of RSS). In fact we have several feeds, one for each news department, one even for our discussion group. If anybody wants to read up on how to manage this site, how to really make it sing, here's a pdf how to, and some web resources here and here. Not that I'm expecting anybody to become a site swot overnight, but, over time maybe one or two will slowly absorb some stuff, after all, this site is going to be one heck of a resource for The Wrekin, eventually. |
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