Richard Field, Creator and Editor of the website, Bishop Monkton Today says:

“Bishop Monkton is a small rural village in North Yorkshire and, until recently, lacked any effective way of communicating quickly and effectively with residents about matters of local concern. That was why, in January, 2005, on the same day the community’s new Village Hall was opened, our website was launched.

This meant that communication no longer relied on a monthly Parish Church Magazine, a few village notice boards, flyers through letterboxes and gossip in the village shop!

The website has become extremely popular and in November we passed 70,000 visitors to the site since we began.

Apart from providing detailed parish news and information, the site plays a valuable role in publicising community endeavours, recognising local achievements, sometimes playing a campaigning role and supporting both individual and community fund raising initiatives.

We lay emphasis on social issues (giving early warning and advice on burglaries, suspect doorstep callers, the risk of flooding, etc). We also support local community enterprises, being the driving force in setting up a community first responder team (vital in a rural area where ambulances can take time to reach us); promoting a new Help and Support group which will support the elderly, isolated and the lonely; encouraging the installation of speed signs to curb speeding traffic; and supporting what was once an ailing village shop.

The overall effect of the website has also been to bring the village more together with far fewer people feeling they are isolated and left out. Virtually every club and organisation in the village has a correspondent who submits regular items or letters for inclusion. Many readers also submit letters on a wide range of topics making the site fully interactive.

Our website was created with a nil budget, and initially we had no technical knowledge, and faced initial suspicion that it might be intrusive and little used, but we quickly proved all these reservations to be ill founded and indeed the success of the website will be highlighted at a forthcoming Rural Action Yorkshire seminar with the hope it will inspire an audience drawn from many rural communities from throughout the Harrogate and Ripon areas, to follow suit.

We recently won the Communications Award at the Village of the Year Competition organised by Rural Yorkshire and we are looking at the idea of spending the £500 that we won through that to set up a communications centre in the village which would provide an opportunity for anyone, but particularly the elderly, to come and learn new skills.

The fact that we have been able to create such a well read website at absolutely no cost to the community, has received recognition from the BBC, Yorkshire Post and other media, and suggests that our initiative could well inspire other rural communities to do something similar.”

The Acting Chief Executive of Rural Action Yorkshire, an independent charity, working with local communities to improve the quality of life for all people living and working in rural Yorkshire, says:

“Bishop Monkton Today is an excellent example of what communities can achieve for themselves… Bishop Monkton found that their community had lots of skills and interests that have been important in what they have achieved. Mobilising them is the secret and good communications can make all the difference to this.”

Why not visit Bishop Monkton Today online and find out more about what they’ve been doing?