By 2005

• The site had grown enormously 
• Broadband had become much more widespread
• Many more people had taken the internet into their homes
• The founders were finding it increasingly difficult to give the site the time it needed

In May 2005 I accepted, with some trepidation, the invitation to redesign the site. I have retained almost all the original material and links and introduced new material as appropriate. 

My intention was to arrange the enormous amount of excellent material into logical order and make it clearly accessible. I also set out to give the site the character of a glossy magazine. It was to  have a topical flavour and yet be a fascinating archive of recent village life. Additionally, it should be a useful local reference and an easy portal to the world-wide web. 

Invisible (almost) changes: November 2009

The pictures of the Bells Dedication service at St Helen's on 17th October 2009  filled up the tenth free 25 Mbs webspace of the village website, so I wrote to PlusNet to open Free Account number eleven. Their reply sent a shiver down the spine: "Free webspace service discontinued"!

The shiver was because I knew that meant wholesale restructuring of all the links in the ten different websites to combine them as one. It also meant finding a suitable provider of 500 Mbs of webspace and also, unless this was to become my annual gift to the village, a request for funding.

As it turned, out the Parish Council happily promised to stand the cost and a friendly space-provider was found right here in the village. Diarmuid Coyle of Little Eversden, arranged a space and a price. I sorted out the links - it took two days - and the site now resides comfortably in its new location - same address - and you never noticed!

The website that the domain name used to point at has now gone. The domain name remains the same so no one will see the change.

While I was changing all the links I took the opportunity to tone down some of the more outrageous colour schemes and also to standardise the width of most pages to fit in the middle of your screen (or fill it if it is 800 pixels wide). I also removed some of the pages of links to such as financial services, computer suppliers, and motoring organisations. People are now so familiar with Google and other search engines that I felt such pages were no longer necessary. I kept the Shops page as that can be a quick way to a range of national and local stores.

Diarmuid tells me the website already takes up over 250 Mbs so the move was timely. The space of 500 Mbs should last at least another five years. By then a decision will have to be made about whether or not the site remains a magazine with archive attached - or just a magazine. As it stands it is a picture of Eversden life and landscapes throughout this entire century (so far).

The site today comprises 25,176 files - and growing! There have been 60,000 recorded visitors since May 2005. The rate at the moment is roughly 1000 per month.

The cost to the Parish Council is about ten pounds per month.

David Farnell    11th November 2009