Around the middle of 2006, Green Gym held a session at what used to be called Barton Middle School in Newport. During the tea break, I mentioned to Mark that it might be a nice idea if we could somehow record the work we did each week so others might be able to view it. His reply was along the lines of…."Well, if you think it can be done then feel free to have a go" - little did I know what that was going to involve! Bearing in mind that Twitter and Facebook were unheard of back then, access to what has now become "social media" was very limited. One of the few alternatives available was the Google Blogging site so, with some trepidation (and lots of errors), I managed to download the software, establish an account and published the first ever blog, the content of which is shown below…
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
"FROM LITTLE ACORNS...."
This is the first entry on the Isle of Wight Green Gym blog site!
This is an "unofficial" site - run by Green Gymers - for their own use. The official site can be accessed on www.footprint-trust.co.uk - then go to the Green Gym pages.
We hope to make this a diary of our work at the numerous sites we attend on the Isle of Wight. Any articles, pictures or almost anything can be forwarded to Bob the Blog - who will endevour to get them published on this site. So come on you guys....send in the information.....NOW..!
Posted by Bob the Blog at 10:26 AM
Not exactly a memorable world event but, ten years on, we are still publishing a weekly blog page that strives to showcase the work that Team Green Gym do on a Wednesday morning.
Over the years, people have mentioned various reasons why they log into the blog, which includes - to show their "nearest and dearest" what they have been doing, if unable to attend sessions then to catch up with what has been going on, to see what GG does before coming along to volunteer or….. just to look at what we manage to achieve in just 3 hours a week!
By having a Blog account, you can access all sorts of statistics about the "audience". To date we have had just short of 500,000 page views from countries as far afield as the USA and China. Quite amazing when you consider that we are a just small group of volunteers, working on a small island off the south coast of England - such is the power of social media. We are all world famous celebrities!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people who have contributed to the blog over the years. Without all the wonderful photographs and informative articles that have been submitted, the 570 blogs that I have written would have been far more boring than they already are. I can assure you trying to find interesting words to describe Pulling Pesky Plants for the umpteenth time is NOT for the faint hearted…!
Please note that, as mentioned in the first ever blog, it is YOUR blog and to that end I am happy to include anything that you might send me (subject to it not being too rude!). If anyone has ideas how we might improve the content or change the format then please have a word with me, on a Wednesday, preferably over a cup of tea and a biscuit.
Well, that is enough of me rambling on, all that is left to say is…. "Bring on the next ten years". I just hope that Bob the Blog will still be turning up at GG on a Wednesday and manage to battle through the ever complex technology to bring you a weekly blog update on our amazing Green Gym sessions. Perhaps by then we will have robots to do the work and holograms to show what they did???