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Safer Hastings website short-listed for national communication award
The Safer Hastings Partnership’s website (designed, created and maintained by us truly) has been short-listed for a prestigious national award.
www.saferhastings.co.uk has made it to the final five websites in the running for the Local Authority Website of the Year at the Good Communication Awards 2007.
Hits on the website have increased astronomically since it was relaunched last year, with an initial increase in monthly hits of 2,000% (two-thousand) in November 2006, which doubled in January 2007, rose by yet another 30% in March and rose by a further 20% in April.
A surprising number of these hits have come from other countries, and in March 2007 the Partnership was invited to speak at a Student Safety Conference in Naples, Italy, as a direct result of the organisers visiting the website.
Latest statistics reveal that approximately 75% of the visitors to www.saferhastings.co.uk come directly, rather than through search engines such as Google or links on other sites.
New features on the website include:
- A Media Player where visitors can watch community safety films from the SHP’s 11-screen community TV network from the comfort of their own home. Monthly download statistics reveal that the media player is the most popular of those connected to CCN Ltd’s TV systems;
- The Fear of Crime Survey was available online for the first time in 2006: 73% of respondents completed the survey online and the Internet option attracted an unprecedented level of responses (13%) from under 25s, a typically hard-to-reach group;
- Every news item and bi-monthly four-page spread on the SHP in the local newspaper is available to download, or visitors can simply view the headlines and click to read more about whichever articles are of interest to them;
- The website has provided the perfect host for full details, terms and conditions of the SHP’s schools competitions, which attract more than 200 entrants each time, as well as for their winning entries to be displayed in the Gallery section.
The website has already been recognised with a local award – winning the public vote for Best Community Site at the SCIP Hastings & Rother Web Awards at the end of 2006.
The Good Communication Awards aim to promote and encourage the public sector’s efforts towards effective communication with its citizens.
At last year’s awards, SHP-TV won 2nd place in the Strategic Communications Campaign category and was praised by judges as “innovative” and having a “clear impact on local crime perceptions”.
Sponsored by O2, PMA Training, the Local Government Channel and Sony (among others) the Awards Ceremony, hosted by GMTV News presenter Penny Smith, will be held at the London Grosvenor Square Marriott hotel next Wednesday (30/05/07).
Natalie Williams, SHP Communications Manager, said, “We were delighted to hear that the website has been short-listed for one of the prestigious National Good Communication Awards. We’ve worked hard with FAT Promotions to make sure our website is interactive, attractive, easy-to-use and informative, and the success of this is reflected in the huge increase in hits.”
Fiona Allman-Treen, Managing Director of FAT Promotions, added, “We were delighted to work with the SHP on their website as it gave us the opportunity to create a site with real community value, an invaluable resource for local information which we're proud to be associated with.”
Everyone's a winner!
Friday 30th March was the date of the 1066 Business Awards 2007, and a fabulous day it was too!
Not only did we all get to enjoy the hospitality of the swish Powdermills Hotel (www.powdermillshotel.com), but our lead Web Developer Ian Jarvis beat stiff competition to scoop the award for Outstanding Individual Achievement of the Year. Nominated for his absolute dedication to customer service and eagle-eye for detail, Ian's nomination was also supported by his contribution to the local community, not least of which was the fact that he regularly runs the Hastings Half Marathon to raise money for a local hospice.
Sponsored by Business Link Sussex, the award ceremony itself was great fun, very well attended and, needless to say, we all came home very happy indeed!
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