Helmdon's Original Website
The creation of a Helmdon website was first mooted in 1999. Maintained by the Helmdon branch WEA with Danny Moody as Webmaster and Audrey Forgham as Website Editor, the website www.helmdon.com became a comprehensive resource for the whole village. The website received much praise:
In March 2002 it received the Amdow Web Design Community Website Award. Then the website was reviewed by BBC's Radio Five team as part of Simon Mayo's regular "Top Web Sites of the Week" feature, and in April 2002 they placed it fourth.
In 2003 the website was acclaimed the UK Villages Online Web Site for 2003.
Further success came in the Calor Village of the Year 2005, when the website was instrumental in Helmdon winning the ICT Village of the Year for Central England - see press cutting (on helmdonhistory.com).
In 2013 the website won a prize for being the most informative website in Northamptonshire in a competition run by Northamptonshire ACRE.
Up until 2018, the web site www.helmdon.com continued to publicise village events, record village events and keep the community up to date with relevant news items. In parallel with this, the website team and other contributors collected a wide range of historical and genealogical articles (and photographs) which have subsequently been accessed by people from around the world.
In 2018 it was decided that the current website should be replaced by two websites - one to carry current news and community information (this website, maintained by the Parish Council), and another to contain historical and genealogical information (www.helmdonhistory.com, operated and maintained by the historians of the village). This upgrade, also gave the opportunity to embrace new technology to allow websites to be more accessible, for example to those using mobile devices. We always welcome your suggestions and comments.
The Last Ever post on Helmdon.com (2018)
And so, with a mixture of pride and sadness, this is the last ever post on www.helmdon.com.
The image above was taken this evening as I walked my dog over Water Leys, and I thought that a setting sun was very apt for the last photo. But like a new sun rising, the recently launched new village web site at www.helmdonparishcouncil.gov.uk will continue to serve you with all the news and information you need, so please visit it often.
Thank you to all the web site followers. It's been great fun!
Thank you to all the hundreds and thousands of visitors to helmdon.com over the past eighteen years, and for the all the posts, contributions and photographs.
Danny Moody, webmaster for helmdon.com for 20 years says his final farewell...
"It has been an absolute pleasure being Helmdon Webmaster all these years and I shall miss doing it. Audrey Forgham and I have collaborated on the web site for the best part of twenty years and have swapped e-mails about web site stuff almost every single day (that's over 7,000 times!). It's been great fun working with Audrey and we plan to carry on working together on a new local history web site (coming soon!).
So, signing off now as... Helmdon Webmonster."
The Parish Council would like to thank Danny and Audrey on behalf of the village for their hard work and commitment.
