This week has been busy with news coverage and has been hampered by an illness. However, I have made one non news related change to Wyenot. I have reorganized the WNTV VIDEO page, organizing the picture links to the videos in a new format which should make any particular type of item much easier to find.

Spent a year promoting and two days covering the Ross Country Music Festival. Got absolutely drenched on Saturday evening filming and taking the photos and spent the whole of Sunday morning and early afternoon taking more photos and film, then spent 16 hours on Monday on just processing the photos and editing the video together for that one event. We did cover other weekend events as well. Made myself ill doing this.

The local newspapers did not bother to show up. Still they obviously got away with it and got sent a couple of photos.

So far. Not a word, from anybody regarding our coverage of that event, other than, whilst I was photographing the official opening, the Mayor asking me. 'Why are you the only press here covering this event?

I am not upset about not hearing from people - this is just the norm. I am however very upset at photos being sent to the local newspaper, when they could not be bothered to go along themselves and cover the event. They were not there either for the crowning of the Carnival Princess and I was asked to send one of my photos. At first, I refused but then gave in and sent them one. As usual, that photo was not credited when published. (Somebody else told me that, without my having asked - I don't read it.) They didn't turn up for the opening of Peterstow Community Centre. The organizers of that event waited for them to arrive for a while and then started complaining about them for not turning up to that event - yet somebody still sent them a photo.

This has answered my question as to whether or not I shall bother to continue with local news coverage in future. I will - but only for people who support us.

I have felt considerably unsure this past week of the direction in which I want to steer 'Wyenot News' for the future. My dilemma is, whether or not to continue with the news or just return one hundred percent to the tourism side of 'Wyenot'..

I am very happy with the way 'Wyenot' is progressing and working as a tourism medium, and particularly with the success of the video films I have made over the past few months. I intend to seriously build this side up, however I am very unhappy with the news. I find working on it extremely unrewarding and depressing

If I am absolutely honest, I feel that we are wasting a lot of time on it, for no financial return whatsoever. In fact, it costs me more in expenses than I make from it. Just lately, I have been studying the reader / viewer statistics and this has shown me one major thing. Although the news does have its loyal, regular readers, mostly the articles, in particular the video news items, are only viewed by those who were actually involved in the events covered by them. Very few local people seem to be interested in what others are up to. Most only seem to look for themselves.

I can see this from the page view statistics. If I cover and event which involves 30 people, then about 40 local people view that page. If I cover an event involving 1000 people (New Year's Eve - The Carnival) then about 1010 local people look at the article. If I cover an event which involves a dozen old people that have no idea about the internet, that article has about 10 local viewers within a week and none thereafter - that is, until the following year, when I invariably receive an email from the organizer along the lines, 'Thank you for covering our event last year. We are holding a similar event next week'.

The news is also used by local businesses as a way of trying to obtaining free advertising. Other than that I have removed the names, this is an exact copy and paste of a 'NEWS EDITORIAL' I received this week, which the sender expected me to publish free of charge. Please bear in mind when you read this that, although 'Wyenot' brings tens of thousands of people to Ross every year, all of whom spend money in local shops, only 11 town shopkeepers out of a possible 100 minimum support us by advertising for £90 per year...

'NOT ANOTHER BORING OLD BARBECUE!"

Barbecues don't need to be boring" says XXXXXXXXX, one of XXXXXXXXX' quality butchery team, based in the new Food Hall at Labels Outlet Shopping. "Burgers and sausages are always top of the list when it comes to outdoor summer cooking, but regular cuts of meat can easily become stunning barbecue food with very little effort" he continued. "Lamb chops and cutlets are perfect for barbecues and cook within minutes. Place lamb chops or cutlets in a heavy duty freezer bag; add olive oil, peeled, roughly-chopped garlic and fresh rosemary. Pound with rolling pin to flatten and tenderise the meat and distribute the flavours. To infuse and really enhance the flavours, marinate in a fridge for several hours before cooking. Mix a little mint sauce with natural yogurt or cream, and serve with the barbecued lamb!. Perfect alfresco dining!" If the prospect of sizzling sausages and burgers is just too good to miss,'

Here comes the advert:

XXXXXXXXX offer a superb own made selection, with lamb & mint, pork & apple, and steak & cracked pepper with caramelised onion burgers, in addition to the the traditional 'beef burger'. All of XXXXXXXXXX sausage is own made using local, outdoor-reared pork, with fabulous flavours including 'Welsh Dragon' - a blend of pork, leek & chillies, and pork, spring onion, apricot & stilton. XXXXXXXXXXX is renowned for stunning kebabs too, with Spicy Rump, Piri Piri Pork, and Lamb Kofta. The new Food Hall at Labels Outlet Shopping, junction 4, M50 Ross-on-Wye, has become a culinary showcase for local and regional produce, with the recent launch of XXXXXXXXXX - quality butcher of Abergavenny and Chepstow - the latest addition to Labels' rapidly-growing Food Hall. Labels already trades with other successful, local businesses - XXXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXX, and XXXXXXXXXXX School Uniform Shop - all based in Hereford.

**********ENDS**********

PICTURE: (A big, full shop front view) XXXXXXXXX Butchers in the new Food Hall at Labels Outlet Shopping'

Two things this week have prompted me to consider whether or not I wish to continue with the news on 'Wyenot'. The first was covering the Princess Anne visit. Covering that event was not fun. It was 3 full days of stressful, hard work. First of all, I had to go and film it, amid all of the security, which was extremely hard work. Then I spent another 2 full days, processing the photos, then editing, rendering and uploading the video of the event. At the event, there were perhaps 130 people. To date, that article has been read and the video watched 158 times. I received one thank you for covering the event - that was from somebody in Holland. Nobody locally has so much as even mentioned it.

The second concerns the freeloading shopkeepers in Ross. I received a phone call on Thursday from a very well spoken, plumb in the mouth woman, who did not ask, but demanded. 'I need you to give me the phone number of (it was a female name). 'I'm sorry but I have never heard of her,' I replied.
'Yes you have,' she continued. 'You did a full page, excellent splash on 'Wyenot' about the opening of her High Street shop. You must know her!'

Then it dawned on me who she was. It was a local shop, the owner of which wanted maximum publicity when she first opened. I even got a cup of tea and a cake for covering the opening, with lots of photos and a write up about how good her business was. After I had published it, I never heard from her again.

I am seriously considering dumping 'Wyenot News', other than coverage of major town events which involve the whole community - such as the Carnival, Jamstand, The Country Festival, Ross in Bloom etc. This would allow me much more time to work on the tourism side of promoting the area - the coverage of places of interest to visitors and the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean video films. After all - it is the owners of hotels, inns, guest houses and camp sites, canoe hire companies who know the true value of 'Wyenot' and who do support us.

I feel that we are trapped in a rut of news coverage for the sake of just a handful of local people (and considerably more ex-pats) who do appreciate the amount of work involved. We make no money from the news coverage itself and, on the whole, the news coverage does nothing for local tourism, so what have we got to lose, other than lots of stress. If we go ahead with this plan, we will continue to publish the missing persons reports and other similar important items.

We will also continue to cover news items and events which take place in venues which support us by advertising, such as but not limited to Ross Cider, The White Lion, The Hope & Anchor etc.

The past couple of weeks, since we came back from our break have been hectic with lots of local news to cover. We covered the opening of the refurbished police station as well as many other local big events, not least of which was the visit to Ross Ryefield Centre of HRH Princess Ann.

I made a bit of a blunder with the Royal visit, forgetting to put Tina's name down on the security list of people from Wyenot who would be going around the Centre with the Princess. I don't know how I forgot - after all, there are only two of us. It was one of those trying to do everything at once in a hurry things. I put my own name down and returned the email response. Then thought, 'Oh Dear (or words to that effect). My life is going to be Hell now!'

Luckily. When we arrived, several people recognized us and all Tina had to do was sign, giving her full name and address. Mayor, Councillor John Edwards vouched for her and she was able to stay after the security lock-down of the building. It was a good job as I could not manage alone, filming video and taking stills.

The coverage of the Princess Royal's visit will be appearing here soon. The edited video coverage is rendering and uploading as I type but this process takes many hours.

We have a busy few days ahead with local news coverage as well - three events over this coming Friday and Saturday and on top of this work, we have been looking after the White Lion Inn, whilst owners Jacqui and Dave are on holiday. Whilst staying there, a lady who was visiting Ross as a result of looking at the pictures and video on 'Wyenot' introduced herself to me whilst I was still wiping the sleep from my eyes by the river one morning. The three of us have made friends and 'Gill' enjoyed her visit to Ross. Nice to meet you Gill and we look forward to keeping in touch and to your next visit.

Whilst on the subject of the river. The web cam. Just lately, I had been noticing a severe drain on my bandwidth - a commodity which I have to pay for - due to the web cam and so I looked into what has been happening. The web cam was literally online 24/7 with frames being pulled all through the day and night, from places in Worcester, Newport and elsewhere. I finally sussed it yesterday. Other places have been using my little web cam window and linking to it as a resource on their own web sites. Linking to 'Wyenot' I don't mind. Stealing my bandwidth, I do as this costs me money! On discovery, I changed the webcam url, which makes no difference to people viewing from Wyenot, or from the White Lion web site but it caught the dodgy users out. My bandwidth usage literally halved, the very next day. From now on, I intend to change the webcam url regularly, to an unguessable new name and at random times. This should hopefully stop the bandwidth thieves.

My best ever 'own back' to a bandwidth thief happened a few years ago now. The Jehovah's Witnesses were pulling one of my photos and I saw it being downloaded on a page of a Jehovah's Witness blog site. Rather than take it down, I kept the same file name on my server but changed the image for an advertisement to 'Give Blood and Save a Life!'. It was quite funny seeing that 'Give Blood' advert full page width on their blog for months. Might even still be there, I haven't looked for ages.

Anyway, I'm waffling on a bit here whilst waiting for the Princess Anne video to cook but though it had been a while since I last updated my own blog. With that I'll wish everybody, sunny days and starry nights (everybody that is except the 'Cloud Appreciation Society' members and to those, I just wish nice fluffy cumulous clouds that resemble things). See you when I next update.

As most will be aware, Tina and I took a few days off from 'Wyenot' this week and this is why the news has been lacking here (and probably in the Journal too). We went to Burnham-on-Sea for a few days to relax.

I have to say that we did not particularly want to return. In terms of quantum physics, Burnham-on-Sea is like the Antimatter version of Ross-on-Wye. The streets in the Town Centre are bustling with friendly people. All of the locals are polite, including the shopkeepers, who do stuff to help themselves, such as joining in and supporting local events and they go out of their way to help. And to top it all - the tables are clean in Weatherspoons.

You may well ask, 'Why did you return?' To be absolutely honest, when we were last there, we did, very seriously consider relocating. However, there was one big drawback. Burnham already has an excellent web promotion medium - a lot like 'Wyenot' and so I could not go there and do similar work to that I am doing here. Shame really. I wish I had thought about making the move a few years ago and started Burnham-on-Sea.com. Unlike 'Wyenot', the Burnham equivalent is supported by virtually all local shops and businesses, as well as the local Council. I think that this is the reason that Burnham is thriving. Because the local shop keepers do not sit back moaning. They get on and do things to help themselves and have the foresight to realize that, in this day and age, people look on the web before visiting a place.

It was nice to switch off from the news for a few days. Whilst we were there, three newsworthy occurrences took place whilst I had my camera with me but I ignored them. One quite funny incident happened between Tina and I. The police had cordoned off part of the main road with about a dozen police vehicles, at a place where we just happened to be crossing. When we arrived at the scene, there was no drop kerb for Tina's mobility scooter, so I walked across and she took a 2 minute detour to get her scooter across the road. When she caught up with me, she said, 'I wonder what happened there.'
'A lady had an accident, smashed her pelvis and broke her teeth,' I was able to reply. Astounded at my knowledge of the occurrence she asked, 'How did you know that?' The answer was quite simple. A news hound can never switch off completely - even whilst on holiday. I earwiged the conversations in a local shop and on the police radios whilst waiting for her to cross the road. I was able however to ignore it and keep my camera packed away in its bag.

The second incident was a car crash and the third took place whilst I was filming the sunset for my family album. A parasurfer's board had broken, leaving him unable to control it. He was spotted by a local fisherman and the Coast Guard were called and had to rescue him in the life boat. The Burnham-on-Sea.com news hound arrived at the scene, after I had begun filming my time lapse sunset sequence. I could have gone straight over to live, natural light video and filmed the incident, thus being able to provide them with footage for their equivalent of WNTV but I was on holiday, so I continued to film the sunset in time lapse. If you watch the time lapse film, you will see the coast guard below the sun, launching the vehicle to pull the life boat out of the water and the surfer's parachute crossing the sun.

We are now back into it here in Ross and, until a better offer comes along, we will continue promoting Ross-on-Wye, the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean and providing local news. our first job back home was to cover the Music for Sri Lanka event which took place at our favourite local venue. This news item will be available to read and watch later today.

This Week: Other than keeping up with news, I have been somewhat busy working on the pages of 'Wyenot' covering the local standing stones. Continuing on from last week, when I updated the page about Trellech and its magical places, I have updated the photos of Arthur's Stone, the Queen Stone and the Staunton Longstone.

I have also completed the film, 'Standing Stones and Other Spiritual Places in the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean' and this is available to watch from the various relevant places on 'Wyenot'. I hope that you enjoy it and that it helps considerably with local tourism.

I caught a company in Monmouth spamming the email addresses of those advertising accommodation businesses on Wyenot. This occurred at midnight, plus and minus 5 minutes on 3rd June, where they used an automatic process to send info about renting your house during Ryder Cup Week. This sounded an immediate alarm on my background monitoring system.

I ABSOLUTELY HATE junk email and I do not like people using my medium as a method of obtaining email addresses to sent their spam to, so I have reported the business to their Internet Service Provider. Hopefully they will be put in their place.

What's On Info: Two people this week have sent in items for the 'What's On' page of 'Wyenot' two days before their event is due to take place. This page gets visited by thousands, every week and works well, but only if you send your event in, in plenty of time. We actually did not bother with publishing the two late arriving events (one arrived yesterday, one today - event tomorrow - Saturday) as it would have meant masses of work, for no pay, which we would have had to have then undone again after just one day. We are here to help, free of charge - as long as you think ahead.

Next Week: Tina and I are taking a few days out, at our usual place of escape - Burnham-on-Sea, beginning Tuesday (leaving the house and in the capable hands of 4 boys, one girl, a boyfriend and the dog). During this period, coverage of news will be sparse, though we will look at email once per day, just in case anything earth shattering happens in Ross which needs to be reported. Things will be back to normal by the end of the week.

You may have noticed that the news has not been very active this week. This has been because not many newsworthy events or happenings took place mid week in Ross Vegas, and I have seriously cut down on publishing the constant stream of junk sent in by the County Council. Quite a lot happened locally on Saturday and these articles will be appearing later today.

Just because there has not been much news, does not mean that I have been idle here. I have been continuing with filming for the series of short HD tourism films I have been making. On Tuesday last, I filmed May Hill and I am very pleased to say that Tina made it to the top. We had to take it very slowly but the fact that she got there was a real personal achievement as she suffers badly with arthritis in her spine, which severely restricts her capability to walk long distances. A film showing May Hill will be appearing on the HD page shortly.

Saturday was a busy day! Two news jobs took place in the morning and two in the evening but during the in between time, I filmed Harold's Stones, Tump Turret and the Virtuous Well. This is for a film I am making about local standing stones and sacred places. I have a few more places yet to film for this one, so it will not be out immediately but hopefully, within a week or two. There has been a page on 'Wyenot' covering Harold's Stones, Tump Turret and the Virtuous Well, in the village of Trellech (Trelleck) since 2003 but when I went there to take the photographs - 6 years ago now - it was a dull and dreary day. Trellech is a beautiful place and the stones and other historic relics are wonderful to see. I had been meaning to get back there and re photograph them ever since but never seemed to find the time - until this week.

A lot of the basic (and most important) coverage 'Wyenot' gives to promote tourism had taken something of a back seat due to all of the County Council poop sent in for publishing - free of charge, I might add, on the news. (Herefordshire Council have never given me a single penny towards all of the time we have spent covering their news. In fact they even gave me a parking ticket once whilst I was out covering one of their events - and they refused to revoke it.) Since cutting all but the genuinely relevant news from them out, I have been able to get back to the basics and it is working - big time. I can see this from the live stats.

I have also managed to make a major update to the Ross-on-Wye page this week, finally getting rid of that very basic map I drew back in 2000 and replacing it with a clickable, aerial photographic panorama, made up of photographs I took from a helicopter in April 2007. Linked from the Ross-on-Wye page, I have also added an 'Aerial Ross' page, using some of the photographs I took from the air during that particular flight. I have run these on the news before but this new page will be more easily found by those looking from afar - those who are just discovering Ross. (People looking to book holidays or short breaks locally are rarely interested in the local news pages, so would not discover those published in the news articles of the time.)

I removed the picture from a 2007 news article - a police warning about bb guns this week, in an attempt to stop the 200 idiots per day, who are currently arriving at that page after searching for 'bb guns' on Google Images. They do my head in and are actually bad for 'Wyenot' because all they do is go to that page, find out they cannot buy a bb gun and then close it down. This seriously increases the 'bounce' rate in the statistics - where people have not found what they were looking for and closed the page. This is bad for the world wide ratings of 'Wyenot'. It has not done any serious damage yet but I don't like these people messing up my ratings, if only by a tiny fraction of a percent. They are mainly from the USA but I had to laugh the other day when I saw someone arrive at the page searching for a bb gun, whose IP address placed him/her in Cambodia. Maybe the napalm used during the '70s is going to be replaced by more high tech ball bearing combat.

Wyenot is still run on a very tight shoestring budget, in that, the only money towards its whole upkeep (my wages plus the considerable expenses and equipment costs involved) comes from our small number of advertisers. There are just a very small minority of our advertising supporters - three, to be precise, who are always, every year, without fail, reluctant to pay their bill on time and, rather than call to explain matters, hide and dodge phone calls. Oddly enough, one of these people has (or had) the second most visited advertising page and referral rate on the whole of 'Wyenot'. Last year I took them down for non-payment and a cheque was delivered to my door, by hand, the very next day.

I recently made a serious decision about this. In past years, I have removed their pages / banners and put them back when payment has been received. This year, I am not going to put them back. I have permanently removed two 'supporters' forever. And that is forever, forever. Both were three months late with their payment last year, and the year before and were three months late paying this year when I removed them.

I am sorry but those who do not pay us on time and deliberately avoid contact with us by dodging phone calls are just 'dead wood' to us and take a large share of the business which could be going to the vast majority of our kind supporters who always, without fail, pay on time. A vast amount of unpaid effort goes into maintaining 'Wyenot' so that it works to the degree that it does for everybody and constantly chasing payment takes a lot of time and causes us undue stress. It takes masses of work to keep removing and replacing pages and the various links to those pages scattered about the whole of 'Wyenot.com' year after year and this extra work completely null and voids the fee we charge for the advertisement in the first place. If you call to explain, we will always try to accommodate but I am sorry. We are here to help but if you just avoid us when it comes to bill time, we are no longer going to support your business.

Thank you very much to the vast majority of our loyal supporters for the help you are giving by supporting us. We do struggle at times but your help does keep the wolf from our door. It also helps the town of Ross-on-Wye and its beautiful surrounds as a whole.

Recently, I installed a new visitor statistics engine to 'Wyenot'. This is not something available for the public to see (unless they visit here, of course) as allowing that would involve me divulging passwords to my web server. It has been installed purely to help me see what the viewer is looking for, so that I can tailor the content for everybody, and provide the information that the majority of visitors to 'Wyenot' are actually looking for. The system has been running for a couple of weeks now and provides live information as to what viewers are ACTUALLY looking at, how they found it and how they navigate their way around 'Wyenot.com' in general. I have learned an awful lot from this and have been making changes - improving the pages that are the most popular, and adding the information that I see people searching for to pages, if it is missing.

What has REALLY surprised me is the amount of people using 'Wyenot'. There is NEVER a time of day when at least two people are not looking at 'Wyenot' - and I have checked this between 8.00am and 3.00am the following day, for the past couple of weeks. Most of the time, during the average British 'awake' time, Monday to Friday, between 18 and 30 visitors are 'surfing' 'Wyenot' at any given moment. During the British 'sleep' times, Americans, Australians and New Zealanders take over, to a very slightly lesser extent where the Brits left off.

Because the system is actually attached to the 'Wyenot' web server, it is highly accurate and has absolutely proved one thing for sure... exactly how much the counter at the bottom of the pages on 'Wyenot' fails to register. That counter, run by 'the counter.com' misses between 800 and 1,200 pages viewed per day. This is because in order to clock up a 'page viewed,' it has to send a 'packet' of information to the USA, and often the 'packet' misfires. At the time of writing this (Monday evening) that counter is registering 3,562,714 pages viewed but I estimate that this figure should read closer to 12 million. (Funny enough, it misfired twice when I just tried to obtain that figure.) The other major reason that the counter at the bottom of the page vastly under reads is that, for the first 4 1/2 years, I had it set to only count visitors that viewed the 'home' page.

Another thing it (as well as the stats for videos watched) has definitely proved... The news is popular, but mainly with persons visiting from afar. Although I know that the news has its regular and loyal local followers - lots of them; the average person in Ross is not really interested in local news unless it involves them personally. Also: a story involving somebody's misfortune gets read a lot by people using local ISPs, whereas one about say, 'somebody doing good' gets watched by the 'do gooders' (for want of a better word) themselves and a few of their friends and supporters. Few others seem to give a damn. The news items sent in by, or covering County Council events / happenings are hardly read by anybody at all, other than said County Council themselves. I am going to severely cut down publication of these, as publishing them is extremely time consuming and, quite frankly, a total waste of time.

The news videos are watched for a few days after release (understandably, these have a short life span then drop off) but they start to get watched again, months / years later by people scanning the archives. The news archives are a particularly popular part of 'Wyenot'! The short films I recently started making have proved to be EXTREMELY popular - especially with potential tourists, looking for places to visit. The 'Symonds Yat' film has been watched over 2,300 times in two months and the 'King Arthur's Cave' film, 200 times in just one week. To me, this is very good news because making these films is something I really enjoy doing and, to be absolutely honest, reporting news is something for which I earn nothing, and I consider has become more and more of a chore as time goes by. The only reason I still do it is because people have come to expect, and even rely on it. I will, of course, continue to report news but I intend to be much more selective in what I publish.

I would quite like one of the local newspapers to make me an offer for 'Wyenot News'. That way, I could be completely free of it and concentrate solely on promoting Ross-on-Wye, the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean. For the purely financial based local rag, 'Wyenot News' has huge advertising potential, which I do not have time to explore. They might even be able to safeguard their own future with it - get ready for that time when those more wrinkly than I, who do not use the internet have passed on to that 'better place'.

Over the holiday weekend: I have covered a couple of local news stories but mainly I have been filming for two new tourism films in the making. One of the films is about local 'Standing Stones', the other about local 'Hill Walking'.

On Saturday, Tina and I spent the day at 'Arthur's Stone' whilst I filmed for the former. There is already a page for each of the local standing stones on 'Wyenot' but Arthur's Stone is the most popular. That place is just so fantastic to visit! It is relaxing in a peaceful, almost spiritual way. I met a nice, rather eccentric, young lady whilst there. She was hoping to spot UFOs. There were a couple of funny out-takes during the filming but over all, I have all the footage I need for Arthur's Stone and now need to film a little more of the Queen Stone, the Staunton Longstone, and Harold's Stones, Tump Turret and the Virtuous Well to complete the film. Given some sunny days for filming, this project should be complete within a few weeks.

Sunday's job nearly killed me - quite literally. For the 'Hill Walking' film, I went alone to Hay Bluff. Being an idiot, I decided the more gentle footpath involved a much longer walk, so I parked the van at the bottom and backpacking my full camera kit, I climbed straight up the side. Half way up, I regretted it but there was no way out. I was beyond the point of no return. With my heart beating so fast and loudly that I could hear it, my throat restricting as I gasped for every breath, I truly thought I was going to die on the mountain. I extended the legs of the video tripod to use as a staff and walked where I could, but I literally crawled the last few hundred feet on my hands and knees. I made it to the top though, meeting another man who had walked up the longer but more gentle incline of the path. We sat together for a while as we both tried to recover. He recovered more quickly than I and he laughed at my totally exhausted condition.

'We are both carrying back packs, but I've got one big advantage over you'. He gloated. 'You have to climb down again - I don't'. And at that, from his backpack, he produced a parachute. I didn't see him actually jump because I was setting up my cameras but I did see his descent. I missed the actual jump by seconds because I was still setting up the equipment. He made it safely to the ground, whilst I spent about 3 hours filming from the top before descending again. The almost vertical descent was easier on the heart than the upward climb but 24 hours later - every muscle in my body aches. I really must try to get fit again!!!

The 'Standing Stones' film will be a while before completion - I am not going to rush it. I want both films to be good. I filmed May Hill in the distance from the top of Hay Bluff on Sunday. Tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday) I intent to take, what will now seem like a 'gentle stroll' up May Hill to film up there, and try to include a shot of Hay Bluff in the distance to link the two places. Hopefully, I will be able to get this film up and running this week.

I feel very positive about the future of 'Wyenot'. Now that I can see instantly what people are looking for, and how they are looking for it, I can make what is already a huge success for local tourism into an even bigger success. Recent updates to 'Wyenot' as a result of knowing what people are looking for when they view include: updating the Wildlife page and adding two pages to promote winter visits to the area: Ross Winter Scenes and River Wye Winter Scenes. I know that this is not the time of year to think about snow but, in the same way that people start thinking about their summer holiday on 2nd January, they start planning winter breaks during the late summer.

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The past week has not been one of the best I have known. Ross-on-Wye can be a very funny place. When you are successful at something, some people get very funny about it and dislike you as a result. The funny ones may upset me for a short while. But in the long run, I really don't give a damn about them. I have had a couple over the past week but nobody I really care about has upset me. In fact, by far the majority I have met have been very supportive.

Between gathering, editing and publishing news, I have continued over the past week to try to improve both navigation between and the look of all pages on Wyenot as a whole and, at last, this is all beginning to come together. Visitors should now be able to find their way from anywhere to anywhere with ease and I have updated pages such as the 'Places to Visit' with a new look, including picture links. I shouldn't really admit this myself but I feel quite proud of the new general look.

Initially, I was not going to move the publicity side of Wyenot into the Forest of Dean. Years ago, I published on the one Forest of Dean page I had that I was going to 'keep it brief' about this area because there were already other perfectly good Forest of Dean web sites out there. The main one of these however has decided to move into covering Ross. I don't mind this but, in order to do so, the owner has stolen my photography and wording for those who are advertising with him and is charging more than I do for placing these ads, which are my hard work. Tina even appears in one of the ads on his page (I took the top three advertisement photos on this page and they are all being used without my permission - and this is just one of his pages). I accidentally caught her in the corner of the photo, pad in hand, writing notes for the wording. Unlike he, I would never steal others' hard work but I am no longer going to restrict my coverage of the Forest of Dean. As its borders lie just a couple of miles from Ross, I am going to begin actively promoting the area and have begun with video coverage.

Video is the direction I am beginning to move with the promotion of the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean on Wyenot. So far, the series of short films I have been making have proved very popular - far more so than the news films, which tend to get watched only by those involved. Take, for example the time lapse film about Symonds Yat, compared to the news film about the mural painting in Ross. The Symonds Yat film has currently been watched by 2057 individual people since first publishing, whereas the Mural news item, which was published two days beforehand, has only been watched by 53 people.

With local news, most people are only interested in seeing themselves, or their organization in the news and could not really care less about other people and their hard work. This is why I initially began running all TV news events together as a programme, rather than as individual news videos. To try to get everybody seen equally but this did not work because I received phone calls and emails, 'How can I fast forward through the video to find our band / flower show / charity event?'

What I am trying to say here is that, I am gradually moving away from the NEWS side of Wyenot to get back to basics. I shall continue to run news but my priorities are going to be shifted towards promotion of the beautiful area in which we live and moved away from the promotion of individuals and charities - who all expect free promotion. I just cannot afford to give every charity FREE promotion, just because they cannot see the hours of background work which goes on in this office behind every single news story published.

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I just had to show you. Following on from my last blog, this is just one of the news releases we have received from Herefordshire Council this morning. It arrived in today's mail, along with plenty more written in exactly the same style.

Now children. For todays lesson we are going to write a news story. The object of the exercise is to see how many times we can fit the word 'Herefordshire' into a sentence. There will be bonus marks for those who can follow it as often as possible with the word 'Council' and for any very long job titles you can use to describe the people appearing in the photos.

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157,395 pages of 'Wyenot' were read during the month of April this year (over 2 million 'hits'). I have been trying to get back to basics by concentrating slightly less on local news (though still running the important stuff as and when it happens) and more on boosting local tourism. Having virtually finished making the recent page format changes to 'Wyenot' as a whole, these figures have already started increasing over the early days of May. The server log shows that the 'Places to Visit' page is the fifth most visited page on 'Wyenot' at the moment, which is good because, this shows that people are looking for things to do when visiting the area.

With this in mind, I spent yesterday, completely updating that page to hopefully make it more attractive and easier for readers to find local places of interest. Over the coming weeks, I shall be adding more pages for it to link to, and updating the information on those already there so that they give more information about the area - places to go walking, canoeing, cycling, fishing, rock climbing, extreme ironing, etc.

I also made one new short film this week. Sitting in front of the screen was driving me batty on Thursday, so I took an afternoon out in the Forest of Dean and filmed the bluebells and wild deer.

I have always laughed at the press releases sent in by Herefordshire Council. Every one of them has those words, which I have come to loath, 'Herefordshire Council' included as many times per sentence as possible. Most sentences actually start with the words, 'Herefordshire Council'.

They can also never mention a councillor's name in a photo caption without including his / her ridiculously long job title. For example, a typical photo caption might read: 'From left to right.: Cllr Joe Nurks, Herefordshire Council's cabinet member for standing by holes in the road with a clipboard and looking important and Cllr Fred Bloggs, Herefordshire Council's cabinet member for overseeing the painting of white lines on roundabouts during peak times presented a Golden Pick Award to construction worker, John at Herefordshire Council owned Hereford Transport Museum on Tuesday, 5th May at 10.45 am.'

This week, I received a perfectly good news release from Mary at the Heritage Centre about a walk she is organizing on Monday. It was absolutely fine and we ran it a few days ago. A couple of hours after receiving this initial release though, I received an edited version of the same press release from Herefordshire Council Propaganda HQ. There was no change in the content, other than that every occurrence of the words 'Ross Heritage Centre' in Mary's release had been changed to, 'Herefordshire Council owned Ross-on-Wye Heritage Centre'.

I hope the recent updates to the 'Alan Wood Owned Wyenot.com - A Photographic Tour of Ross-on-Wye and the Wye Valley' help to bring more visitors to the area. I feel a Monty Python style video sketch coming on:

Interviewer: We have with us in the studio, local historian, Mrs. Flora Smoketoomuch, who has a new theory about the history of Herefordshire Council owned Ross-on-Wye Heritage Centre.

Mrs. Smoketoomuch: 'Ahhmm. ahm, ahm. Yes. This theory about Herefordshire Council owned Ross-on-Wye Heritage Centre, which is my theory, is all mine and I thought of it, so it belongs to me. Ahm hmm aaahmm.'

Interviewer: Yes. Well what is your new theory?

Mrs. Smoketoomuch: Ahhmm. Yes. My theory. About Herefordshire Council owned Ross-on-Wye Heritage Centre, which is mine. Because I thought of it, so it is my theory and it belongs to me - ahh, ahhgh ahmm.

Interviewer (growing increasingly more agitated): Yes. But what is it?

Mrs. Smoketoomuch: Ahh, ahhgh ahmm. My theory, which I thought of and belongs to me is all mine and it goes. 'Herefordshire Council owned Ross-on-Wye Heritage Centre, started out as a market. Then it became a library. And now it is a Heritage Centre. Hmm, ahmm.

Interviewer: Is that it?...................

xxx

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Wyenot has always been easy to navigate but since changing the news format I have tried to make it even easier. As yesterday's weather was rather dreary, rather than go out filming, which was my original intention, I spent the day continuing to update old pages. This job is mostly finished now, so there should be a link button to everything, from everywhere. New visitors entering 'Wyenot' via the 'back door' by searching 'Google' should be able to see that there is much more to it than the page they entered via.

I have only changed the back issues of 'Wyenot News' in a very simple way - by widening them to 1000 pixels and adding the standard links at the top of each page. The reason being that there are thousands of them, and I have had to change each one manually. The small change to each page that I made took three 10 hour days of work to achieve, Realigning all the text and changing the size of photos to match the new style would have increased this time 20 fold.

Searching the archive news: I have modified the 'Google' search tool so that I could add it to the main news pages. Obviously this search tool will not locate news items which have only been live for a day, but 'Google' scans 'Wyenot' daily and it takes just a few days for any new item I add to get picked up. (Occasionally, this happens within a few hours of me adding a new item but it is best to allow a few days.)

It is now possible to find anything on 'Wyenot' within seconds, going back to the very first photos I took when starting the 'Wyenot' venture in May 2000, by using the 'search' tool on the news and news pack issue pages. Try it here:

This facility has been available since day one in actual fact but only from the home page. All I have done here is change the look of the search box and add it to more pages.

As well as successfully attracting masses of tourism to the area and keeping you up-to-date with current news, 'Wyenot' is growing into a massive, easily accessible archive of local news and information and I hope that you like these recent changes. As I am just an ordinary person rather than a machine, there are bound to be pages I have forgotten about and missed whilst making these updates. Should you come across any, we would be grateful if you would let us know.

A personal side effect: Ten years ago, I bought a second-hand melodeon (the type of squeeze box played in folk circles). Although I cannot sing, music in general is something which comes naturally to my family as a whole and, given any instrument, usually I can get some kind of a tune out of it on picking one up for the very first time. The melodeon was different however in this respect. Each 'button' makes a different note depending on whether you push or pull the bellows and the instrument is limited in that it only has F sharp and B flat by way of 'black' notes. The B flat is located in the place on the keyboard where one would least expect to find it. Somehow the instrument seemed to defy logic and I had no instructions. Neither do I know anybody else who can play one and would be willing to teach me. When I got my second-hand purchase home ten years ago, I tried it, gave up and put it behind the sofa.

A month ago, I was looking for something else and found it again. Whilst making the 'Wyenot' updates, I have been doing 100 pages at a time and then uploading them, and whilst waiting for them to upload, as I cannot do anything else on the computer during this process, I have been picking up the melodeon.

During the 'upload' time, I have taught myself how to play the melodeon. I can now hear a tune and am able to play it straight off - as long as it is in the key of G major and involves no other accidental notes than B flat.

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....Neither can we put you up for the night. We do not know if there is a boot sale this week. We cannot build a house for you, valet your car or save your soul from eternal damnation (we do not even know the vicar's phone number, for that matter).

The same questions on the telephone have driven me crazy for the past nine years! The problem is, you see - most people do not read. They just look at the pictures then assume that the phone number at the bottom of the page is the one to ring to obtain what is in the picture.

Hopefully, these questions will now stop because I have just spent the whole of this sunny day removing my phone numbers from the bottom of all but the news pages - replacing it with a link to the contact page. This page explains these things in a little more detail.

The two questions which have really 'got my goat' over the years are: 'Is that Ross Tourist Information?' and 'Is there a boot sale this weekend?'.

In January 2001, I went into Ross Tourist Information centre, introduced myself and asked if I could offer any help with promoting the town. The rather superior lady in the office looked at me patronizingly and made it quite plain that she thought nobody would ever use 'the internet' to look for holidays or short breaks, and that my idea of giving Ross-on-Wye a presence on the world wide web was a complete waste of time. Her response, in actual fact, made me TOTALLY lose confidence in trying to sell 'Wyenot' as an advertising medium by visiting businesses around town. I have NEVER tried making the first approach from that day until now. I wait for people who wish to advertise to come to me.

NOT A DAY GOES PAST: without at least one person calling and asking, 'Is that Ross Tourist Information?' Or skipping the pleasantries and going straight into demand mode: 'I would like you to post me some brochures on things to do in the area.'
Many are quite rude when I explain that I am not 'Tourist Information' and I am not funded. 'Well I definitely rang the number on their web site!'
'No, you didn't Madam. You rang the number on my web site and I am not Ross Tourist Information'. It is always tempting to add, 'I'm just somebody who is doing their job for them without getting paid.'

ROSS BOOT SALE: During the summer of 2003, I went along to Ross boot sale. This is the ONE and ONLY time I have ever been there and whilst there I took some photos. Thinking they might be of interest, I made a page about the event on Wyenot. Some months later, the man who runs the sale, approached me at Ross Market and asked, 'Would you add my phone number to the page on 'Wyenot' with the pictures of the boot sale?' I explained that, if he wanted to advertise, it would cost £45 per year (which is all I was charging at that time). Needless to say, I never heard from him again.

Not a week goes by without at least a few people calling me to ask, 'Is there a boot sale this weekend?' I hate to say it, but the man who runs that boot sale has probably missed out on thousands of potential sellers / customers by not taking out that advertisement.

Hopefully now that my phone number has been replaced with a link to the 'contact' page, these questions will stop - or at least, become less frequent. (I have learned by asking callers that a library, somewhere in Berkshire has my number posted on their wall as being that of 'Ross-on-Wye Tourist Information'.)

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True to Ross-on-Wye form, only about one per cent of readers actually responded to the opinion poll we ran four months ago, asking for readers' opinion on the proposed new look to 'Wyenot News'. The other ninety nine percent said nothing and then started making remarks afterwards.

The poll was about changing the format of 'Wyenot News' from being a weekly, Wednesday publication to its current format of publishing as and when news happens or events take place. At the time I was thinking of changing, I showed a demo of the new look 'Wyenot News' and asked for your thoughts.

Luckily: most seem to like and prefer the new format. Many have said that it is FAR better than the old. There are however some who have said, 'I used to like reading 'Wyenot' on Wednesday but now you update it too often'.

I don't wish to teach Granny how to suck eggs here but, it is still possible to look once per week - if that is what you prefer. All of the week's news will still be there - as is all the news we have published on 'Wyenot' for the past 9 years. It just means that you will find things out that little bit later than those who look more frequently.

More Improvements: My intention has always been to try to make 'Wyenot' to stand out above the rest in every respect - both as a local news medium and as a tourism resource. I mentioned in a previous blog about the HD films and improving information on the Wye Valley. I have already made many of the updates to old pages but there are still a lot of pages to catch up with, and these changes will take me several more months to achieve fully.

For those who prefer to read through the news like a book I have made another change today. From now onwards, each news item we run will contains a link to the one we ran immediately before. (I have linked about a month's worth so far but will work back until all new style news pages are linked in this way.)

To try to keep the weekly readers happy: Rather than take the thumbnail photos on the news home page down as items get moved to the archive pages, I have decided to archive weekly (rather than when the archive page fills up) - keeping the thumbnail images on the archive pages - thus making old news items easier to spot.

Eventually: readers should be able to keep clicking the 'Continue to the next oldest article' link and read through the week's/month's/year's news like a diary - or work through the back items week by week by using the 'GO TO LAST WEEK'S NEWS' links.

Publishing as and when: has both advantages and disadvantages. It certainly helps those concerned in situations such as missing persons. For us, it removed the Tuesday night deadline and made our lives a little easier.

The only real disadvantage for us it that it has made it easy for the printed media to use our stories. Running 'Wyenot News' I have local news coming out of my ears already and so I never buy the local newspaper. (Haven't opened one for at least a year.) I also tend to take the free papers straight from the letter box and put them onto the pile I am collecting for 'Furze Pig Hedgehog Rescue' without opening them. However - stories taken from 'Wyenot' get back to us on the same day of newspaper publication. Several times, people have actually phoned to tell me about news, which they thought had been exclusive, appearing a few days later, virtually word for word in the free press.

In a way, this is flattering: There are two of us running the whole 'Wyenot' show - from researching and reporting through to getting the news out, via web design, page setting, filming, photographing, writing, editing and typing up the article. Yet the news media, with all their staff, equipment and office space (including the TV companies) still use us to fill their pages or programmes.

We hope you like the changes.

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I met Denise Mason this evening, whilst photographing the opening of the new outside dining area at the Hope & Anchor and she said, 'I was disappointed not to find the large version of the photo of you wearing a tie when I clicked the 'blog' link on the news page.

Well. Just for you Denise - it was cropped from the photo below - being the most recent photo of me that I have. As you can see - even in a tie, I'm still a scruffy so-and-so. The photo makes me think of that poem from my youth, 'Brahn Boots - I ask you! Brahn boots. Fancy going to a funeral in Brahn boots!' Except in this case, it was a wedding. Somebody called Sam Martin insisted on grabbing my camera so that I could be in a photo. Dress sense never was my strong point and I wear a tie in the same way as my astro friend, Sir Patrick Moore does, and for the same reason. 'No matter how straight it is to begin with - it always ends up twisted'.

The actual reason for this up date though is: It's a sad world!

I am still working on updating the pages of Wyenot to the new style, and with this in mind, downloaded the server log tonight to see which pages are the most popular, so that I can make sure that I update these first.

The page which has THE most views is the small River Wye webcam window. This refreshes every 15 second and this shows approximately 100,000 frames per month. Second most popular is the home page but there are others, such as Accommodation, Pubs and Symonds Yat pages which get viewed something like 10,000 times per month.

The above are the most visited pages, but slipping in between the Accommodation and the Yat Rock pages, there is one other, odd news page from 6th June 2007 which has around ten thousand visits per month. I wondered why, so looked at its contents and then the Google search strings which are taking people to this page...

...The page contains a warning from Herefordshire police about, 'Use a BB gun in town and you might face an armed police unit'. Further investigation showed that people are ending up on this page are actually searching Google for somewhere to buy a BB gun. As I said, 'It's a sad world!' All I hope is that the article is doing its job and putting off those stupid enough to want one off actually buying one!

Our Aunt Hannah's passed away;
We'd her funeral today,
And it was a posh affair-
Had to have two p'licemen there!

The 'earse was luv'ly, all plate glass,
And wot a corfin! oak and brass!
We'd fahsands weepin', flahers galore,
But Jim, our cousin - what d'yer fink 'e wore?

Why, brahn boots!
I ask yer - brahn boots!
Fancy comin' to a funeral in brahn boots!
I will admit 'e 'ad a nice black tie,
Black fingernails and a nice black eye;
But yer can't see people orf when they die in brahn boots!

And Aunt 'ad been so very good to 'im,
Done all that any muvver could fer 'im,
And Jim, her son, to show his clarss,
Rolls up to make it all a farce In brahn boots - I ask yer - brahn boots!
While all the rest Wore decent black, and mourning suits.

I'll own he didn't seem so gay;
In fact he cried best part the way,
But straight, he reg'lar spoilt our day
Wiv 'is brahn boots.

In the graveyard we left Jim;
None of us said much to him.
Yus, we all give 'im the bird,
Then by accident we 'eard

'E'd e'd given 'is black boots to Jim Small,
A bloke wot 'ad no boots at all.
So p'raps Aunt Hannah doesn't mind;
She did like people who was good and kind.

But brahn boots! I ask yer - brahn boots!
Fancy coming to a funeral in brahn boots!
And we could 'ear the neighbours all remark,
'Wot, 'im chief mourner? Wot a bloomin' lark!
'Why, 'e looks more like a bookmaker's clerk - in brahn boots!'

That's why we 'ad to be so rude to 'im,
That's why we never said 'Ow do!' to 'im.
We didn't know - he didn't say
He'd give 'is other boots away.

But brahn boots!
I ask yer - brahn boots!
While all the rest Wore decent black,
and mourning suits!

But some day up at Heaven's gate
Poor Jim, all nerves, will stand and wait
Till an angel whispers
'Come in, Mate. Where's yer brahn boots?'

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So far this week, there has not been an awful lot news for us to publish and there are two reasons for this. The first is simply that it is a quiet time of year for local events. The main reason though is that, Tina, Bernice and I went to Chelmsford for a few days to attend a family wedding - that of my sister's son, Ben Martin, and with Wyenot being a two person operation, we could not cover the news in Ross at the same time. Things will pick up later this week as I have a few news jobs in the diary.

The event we attended was really nice. As those who are friends with us on Facebook and look in on the family stuff occasionally will know, my little sister, Jan has a very serious brain tumour, which effects her speech, memory and increasingly, her mobility. Despite this, with help, she made it to the medieval church in Chelmsford to see her son, Ben Martin marry Charlotte Foreman. It was just one of those perfect occasions for everybody concerned, and has been the main topic of conversation in both the Wood and Foreman households around the country, as well as the homes of friends ever since we arrived back home. I was not there to take photos but old habits die hard and there is just one below of the happy couple. Congratulations Ben and Charlotte! (Who are currently in Jamaica getting up to whatever newlyweds get up to.)

Updating Wyenot: Since returning home, although there has not been much news to cover, all bar one day of laziness, I have worked solidly, morning until the next morning, updating the pages of 'Wyenot' to the new style. This is one mammoth task, which probably most local people will not even have noticed but it is something which is already proving to be a massive boost to 'Wyenot's' powers as a tourism magnet.

The update is not just a matter of page pixel size. Over the years, I have changed the page format in a minor way about three times, but have never gone through the whole web site, changing every single page. This time I am doing just that and here is the reason it is making such a difference:

Every day, many people enter the Wyenot web site via the 'back door'. After searching Google for whatever, they end up at 'a page' - be it one about local morris dancing, a bed and breakfast establishment or perhaps a news item about somebody they know. Once at that page, they often find what they were looking for and then close it down, thinking that that particular page IS 'Wyenot' - not realizing that there are another 6,000 plus pages, some of which will almost certainly provide further information. As I am updating, I am adding the same link buttons to the main reference pages that are on the home page, to all updated pages, thus making it plainly obvious to first time, back door visitors that there is much more to Wyenot than first meets the eye. If, for example they end up at a random page about, say, Raglan Castle, the buttons, newly added to that page will then point them in the direction of other places of interest in the Wye Valley and places where they can stay whilst visiting the area.

I am also specifically targeting people searching Google for 'the Wye Valley', now, rather than just 'Ross'. Ross-on-Wye has long been known as the Gateway to the Wye Valley, and so this will hopefully bring some of those heading for, say, Tintern Abbey, to Ross-on-Wye for a day. This brings me to another, rather disturbing point but I will talk about that in a minute. For now, I just want to say that the new strategy is definitely working. I began by updating the Wye Valley related pages first - before I left for Chelmsford. With this and the addition of the HD video page, I have noticed an absolutely massive increase in people visiting the accommodation pages. This success was confirmed on Sunday, when one establishment told me that their accommodation at weekends is now fully booked, with the first available vacancy being the last week in September.

Now briefly, the disturbing point: I was actually quite upset by this and it angered me for days. On Bank Holiday Monday, I was at Ross Market, filming the Charity Market when a person of some political importance locally, whom I shall not name, approached me to make friendly conversation, 'Ross is on the up, at last', he said. Rubbing his hands. 'Lots of new shops coming'. I was pleased with him. This is great for the town's future. Sadly though, then he continued, 'And Monmouth is on the down.'
'That's sad,' I said.
I just could not believe his reaction. 'No it's not. It's good,' he gloated, rubbing his hands and laughing at Monmouth's misfortune. 'It will stop people from Ross going there.'

I am sorry but I beg to differ! And from experience! Since I started 'Wyenot', nine years ago, I have learned a lot about this and that and how to attract tourism. All along, I have found that very few people in Ross Town are willing to support me by advertising. And in the beginning, not all but most who did - once they realized how successful the advertisements were, kept that information to themselves, rather than share that knowledge with others. I suppose this is because they imagined their share of business through the medium becoming diluted, if more Ross businesses came on board...

In Symonds Yat, I found completely the opposite story. I started with one business in Symonds Yat supporting me, and from my Ross experience, thought that, would probably be that. To my amazement, just a matter of days after that business coming on board, I was driving my car along the Symonds Yat West road when another vehicle coming towards me blocked my way, so that I had to stop. He came running up to me. 'Glad I saw you!' He said, 'I have heard how well Debbie at The Ark is doing from Wyenot and want to get on there.' He came on board, told somebody else and within a week, I was struggling to keep up with the Symonds Yat businesses that wanted to take out an ad on Wyenot.

Not only did the accommodation businesses do well but the owners of Kingfisher Cruises phoned. They wanted to take an ad because they had noticed people were enquiring about them due to a photo I had taken for the Saracen's Head pub ad, which simply had one of their cruise boats in the background.

Nowadays, if I go to visit Symonds Yat, I always find myself amongst good friends. In Ross - other than just a few people, I can be amongst a crowd and feel utterly lonely.

I shall let you into a secret now. Five years after that man blocked my way with his car, and with most of the Symonds Yat businesses now supporting Wyenot. I can see on my server log that for every 1 person who arrives at a page of Wyenot via Google searching for something 'Ross-on-Wye' related, another 20 arrive by Google search for something 'Symonds Yat' related. Nine years ago, when I first started, this situation was the complete reverse - even though I still have the same basic, general coverage pages about Symonds Yat and Yat Rock on Wyenot to this day as I had then - albeit slightly updated versions.

Be happy about Ross being 'on the up' by all means. But please do not gloat because other towns like Monmouth are apparently 'on the downturn'. If we all try to help one another, eventually we will all find ourselves 'on the up'!

So far, I have updated about 1,000 pages. Only another few thousand to go. It will take some time but I am getting through them and, given a reasonable summer this year, Ross as a whole should notice a big difference in tourist volume as a result. Please ask your visitors - phone enquiries, 'Where did you find your Ross-on-Wye information?' Tina does this at the White Lion, without telling them who she is and 9 times out of 10, they are actually looking at Wyenot.com whilst they are on the phone. The purpose of this blog is not particularly to drum up business for myself. I merely wish to point out that helping one another rather than fighting against one another really does work. The evidence is there for the viewing on my server log, month after month after month. Covering the tourist attractions in the whole of the Wye Valley (including some in Monmouth when I eventually find the time to get there) on Wyenot will help Ross.

The HD films: These are going down very well indeed! I stream these from the 'Vimeo Plus' server, which is like a posh version of 'YouTube'. I have to pay for downloads (when people watch) and although this is going to cost me several hundreds of pounds per year, they are working well for the benefit of the whole area, and so I am willing to carry these costs. I am able to block them from being streamed on other web media, so I know that Wyenot viewers only are getting the benefit. If you look at this page, which is the Symonds Yat time lapse video I made about a month ago, scroll down the right hand side of the page, below the video itself and you will see just how much this, which is just one of the films, is being watched. At the time of writing, 1,179 unique times in a month. If you then click the 'See referrers' link, immediately below the stats on that page, you will then see more detail on referring pages - at the time of writing: 6,194 referrals from 'Wyenot' in one month.

Looking at the other videos I have on Vimeo will show similar information and, if you excuse the pun, per length of time since making it, the 'Wye Valley from the Air' film is taking off even faster than the time lapse film. Here's hoping for a successful 2009 tourism season for everybody!

Congratulations Ben and Charlotte!

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