Webteam publishes new book

The Audlem webteam has just taken delivery of copies of their new book 'People Power', which describes how AudlemOnline was set up in 2005 and now reaches well over 2,000 readers each day.

People Power was printed and bound by Audlem Printers.

The 50-page, 30,000 word book, designed as a working manual, uses the experience of what the webteam says is "one small village of under 2,000. Those villagers, it has to be admitted, are a bit special, and that's official! They won the national title of 'Community of the Year' in a Government-run competition involving fifty English counties in 2005 – which is when this story began.

The introduction continues: "It was that very year when the village of Audlem in the far south of Cheshire voted to have its own website. There had been a couple of former attempts but neither had caught on. This time, there was a clear mandate from the public who had responded to a questionnaire circulated as part of the village's Parish Plan. A website was one of the ideas local people said they wanted for their community.

"Since then the website has been a roaring success. While most village websites attract fewer than a thousand visitors a month, AudlemOnline gets around 70,000 a month. That's well over two thousand visitors a day – not bad for a village with about 800 homes.

The book is designed to help other communities achieve similar success. In recent years the webteam and ThenMedia, the Audlem company that now hosts a very large number of websites, has worked with other villages in Cheshire and much further afield providing the design, technical support and editorial advice for their community websites.

A copy of the book will be presented to Audlem District History Society for their archive and is available to other villages that may be interested in developing their community websites.

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