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About the IsleofAvalon site
Palden Jenkins
History
This site has a relatively long history. Founded in 1996 by Barry Hoon, I gradually took it over from 1988 to 2000 and have been running it ever since. It has gone through four complete redesigns in 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2005
It started out as one person's initiative, aiming to present the town of Glastonbury to the wider world and to serve local public needs. Those were the early days of Internet, and we set in motion other web-based ventures too, seeking to set in motion new community-interaction and outreach processes. Out of this, over the following years, sprang e-mail discussion groups, online radio, town databases and a host of websites.
In 1997 we sought funding from the local Mendip district council, but this was aborted when it was found out that someone else had started another site with similar purposes, Glastonbury Online - the council refused understandably to take sides, though the result was that no one received support at all. This gradually led to a situation where all of Glastonbury's current public service hub sites are privately and voluntarily owned and run, without support from anywhere.
In 2000 a few public-spirited locals sought to help these sites merge to form a larger and properly funded web-project called Glastonbury Online, in the context of the e-commerce boom of the time. The funding didn't work and the plan aborted. Local decision-makers were unaware of Internet's advantages, and local people were insufficiently aware of the added turnover the sites were bringing into the town, so popular support was weak.
An independent style
One outcome was, though, that the public service webmasters in town started cooperating. Since 2001 the hub sites (see below) have operated independently though cooperatively, and this works well. The advantage has been non-interference and the absence of the stultifying effect exerted by official committees on public service websites. Hence that Glastonbury's online coverage is more people-friendly and less corporate and commercial in style than that of many other towns - it's an expression of creative, voluntary input by people who love and care for their hometown. It helps that Glastonbury is an interesting town to serve!
IsleofAvalon
The aim of the IsleofAvalon and the other hub sites is to serve Glastonbury as a whole. Glastonbury has different resident communities - locals, incomers and 'alternative types' - and the last grouping is the most creative and articulate. This results in an online over-representation of Glastonbury by this sub-community. In 2005 the IsleofAvalon webmaster made a policy decision to broaden the site's presentation to cover the whole community but, still, the material forthcoming from residents is predominantly from 'alternative types'.
This site is being constantly redeveloped and expanded, with new features on sacred sites, local community issues and other facets of this multifarious town.
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The site is run from a little old cottage built in the late 1600s, on Chilkwell Street, the ancient pilgrim route into town, near the Chalice Well and the Tor.
Suggestions and inputs are welcome. The site runs on a shoestring, even though it adds six-figure turnover to the town. It gets roughly half a million web-visitors each year. It's the big hit-puller and generator of new business in town, sending people through to the other hub sites for further information.
Best wishes from Glastonbury!
Palden Jenkins
To find out more about Palden, the webmaster, click NEXT below.
Visit Glastonbury's other hub sites too – they each serve a different purpose:
Glastonbury Online for town information
Virtual Glastonbury records town life
Avalon Connections for links to Glastonbury's hundred or more websites.
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