Kingsway Villagers

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the lack of activity on here lately. Angelina (my wife) has been really ill since early October and has only just started back to work. I’ve been a little "below par" for some time now, having been awaiting a hospital procedure since March, which I had early last week. It hurt too - and it took me a while to recover fully (Thanks Karen for helping out with Phoenix’ school pick-ups during that week)

Anyway… a combination of nursing, childminding, housework, laying-around-groaning, a new (work) project, local meetings (Residents Association / Police SCT ) etc, have conspired to keep me really busy / preoccupied, and spoiled my plans to update the website.

And now (to add insult to injury), 3rd-party software problems have created issues with my Submissions Form, so it’s not possible to submit articles at the moment
The same software issue has caused some problems with site display - my apologies to those of you who are seeing a slightly "broken" version of the site right now. If you’re in Internet Explorer 8, the “compatibility view” button next to the site address bar at the top of the window (looks like a broken page), may help a little!

Also - my apologies to those who have sent in articles by email. They will be added soon

I’m working on it all, but - due to everything else (and Christmas preparations to boot) - it may take a "few days"

Meanwhile, I hope everyone else is having a good time… and I would like to wish a - very belated - Happy Birthday to Baz_k (for December 10th), and - to all of you - a Merry Christmas (may as well do one thing ahead of time this month/year)

Pc Melanie Campbell contacted me recently, to announce the forthcoming event:

(For those of you with images switched off):

At Tesco Car Park, on Sunday 4th October, 10am ’til 3pm.

One of my two cats, (a ginger tom named “tigger”) disappeared for a couple of days a few months ago. When he came home his collar had been replaced with another one, (it didn’t look new either)! So I figured it was either local kids fooling around, or he’d lost his collar, wandered into someone’s house and they’d decided he might be a stray (‘though he looks well-groomed) and decided to keep him!
I removed the collar and replaced it with a new one and later that night… he came home without it

Strangely, when walking Phoenix to school the next day I found it lying on the floor!

Needless to say - if I can make it - I’ll be taking him for “chipping”

2 years ago today I officially launched this site with my Welcome To Kingsway message.

Since then we have grown to include 192 Posts and those posts have generated 1,075 (approved) comments

We have also initiated our own Residents Association and become actively involved in the development of the Village, local community Policing and many other local activities.

Right now we have 238 registered contributors and users and a LOT more regular readers (who don’t have to register, but visit the site on a regular basis)… (Note: I remove “false users / blog spammers” every day, so the 238 registered members are genuine)!

In July we attracted around 122,000 hits (4,062 per day).

Of the 192 Posts, 86 were written by me and 106 posts have been written and submitted by YOU.

So - as I originally intended - this really is Our Community Website… not mine.

I want to say a great big THANK YOU to all those of you who have contributed to help make the site a (huge) success

In a recent post I mentioned the up-coming anniversary and my intention to make some changes / add some new facilities.
My recent workload, the kids summer holidays and other things have - as I anticipated - conspired to stop me from achieving this before today, but I will be working on it very shortly.

Hi Neighbours,

The website is coming up for it’s 2nd anniversary on 12th August 2009.

I have some interesting information to post about the history of the site, and I’m hoping to implement a few changes in time for that date (or - more likely - soon afterwards - lol).

My initial ideas include:

A static home page with a welcome message, info’ about navigating the site, the site history, user contributions, my other activities, recent posts, etc.
(Hopefully, use of a static home page will speed up the site loading time).

Extended user profiles - allowing users to enter more personal info’ (optional) and to see each others data (obviously email addresses etc would remain confidential).

A chat room facility to allow users to interact on the site.

A “mini-forum” (I’m not certain yet about the need for this, or the likely effect on the performance of the site… which already includes a lot more facilities than the average blog and can therefore be a little slow at times)!

The purpose of this post is to invite you all to comment on my proposals and to suggest ideas about other things you’d like to see included…

After all, it’s not my site… It’s ours!

Hi Folks,

At the start of last week I had a problem with my Sky internet connection.
Sky said my router firmware needed upgrading and took several days to deliver a new disk. When it arrived I rang them for installation instructions and was informed that the disk was the wrong one so they sent me a new router, which arrived today (yippee)!

I’ve been using Sky Broadband since moving here (2.3 years ago) and have had an excellent service; in fact I can only remember 2 problems. One was on a Sunday night / Monday morning when the network was “down for maintenance” from 2am to 6am (or something like that) which probably didn’t affect many other people (as I recall I was busy that weekend - lol)!
The other problem was apparently a BT problem, which lasted for a few hours.

Sky use a BT exchange for the Hardwicke area (which is why their “unlimited access” broadband service isn’t available in this area). When I first learned of this (back in 2006), I was worried that an access limit might affect me. Sky did say that they would be installing their own exchange within 12 months, after which the unlimited access service would be available, but - from what they recently told me - I gather they still use BT.
With all that said I’ve been very impressed by their broadband facility thus far and have had no problems whatsoever with the access limit!

As an ex Blueyonder customer, I was mortified to hear that they had no intention of servicing Kingsway (“now or in the future” according to Blueyonder customer services); now I’m no longer bothered.

From my web stat’s I can see that there are several other broadband sevices used locally…
How do they compare with Sky?
Also other Sky users, how have you found the service?

My eldest son Michael Barton is destined to play rugby at Twickenham on April 1st, in the final round of the Daily Mail RBS U18 Vase - Under 18 Cup final - St Peter’s, Gloucester v Truro College

Michael (17) is currently attending St. Peters 6th form college studying Sports. He’s a tremendously keen and successful sportsman, having played inline (street) hockey at a very high level since age 7, he’s also had great success with football, having played for Quedgeley, Harwicke, Elmscroft/Longlevens and Gloucester City and District, and is - of course - a very keen rugby player having also played for Lydney - under 19′s and Widden under 17′s.

He’s also been taller than me since he was 13 when he passed the 6 foot mark…

St Peter’s Sixth Form College have played an influential role in helping nurture the talents of Gloucester and England stars Adam Eustace, Ryan Lamb, Marcel Garvey, Brad Davies and Jack Adams.

Read more here.

So I’ll be off to Twickenham to watch the match on April 1st…

Good Luck St. Peters