PARWICH.ORG is the first village weblog in the UK to engage fully with both the blogging medium and the rural community which it supports. It is maintained by a team of five village residents (soon to be eight) and is updated several times daily. Launched on March 16th, it has already captured the imagination of the whole village, and will be reaching its 10,000th page view before the end of its first month; a remarkable achievement for a village with only 500 on the electoral roll.

In its first month of existence, the site has covered the closure of the sole village shop and the opening of a new shop in the village pub. It has supported the work of organisations ranging from the First Responders to the Village Action Group, via the bowling club and the horticultural society. It has successfully campaigned for action from the county council on a dangerous stretch of road. It has also provided a means of offering support for a villager who is seriously ill in hospital.

Part newspaper, part notice board and part discussion forum, PARWICH.ORG is actively trying to address the problems of rural disconnectedness, and to bring an already exceptionally active and self-supporting community closer together. As such, it deserves to be seen as a beacon for any other villages contemplating a similar enterprise.

Nominated by Mike Atkinson, 10 April 2008

Never mind 10,000 by the end of the month - it's going to be 10,000 by this weekend! Everyone I meet in the village is talking about what a wonderful resource it is, and how it can do this and that, and bring the village together, restore a sense of community, where most other events are leading to a fragmentation and polarisation. Having recently lost our village shop, and reading about closure of post offices all over the locale, this is an absolute breath of fresh air, and could really be a blueprint for the 21st century answer to social fragementation and alienation!

Submitted by Graham Johnson, 10 April 2008

Just seen this - it's superb. Definitely something we should look into for our own village. Big congratulations on how well it's going.

Submitted by Alex Marsh, 11 April 2008

Traditional village life in the UK is under threat. The Government advocates 'community cohesion' but doesn't seem to understand that what is needed to maintain and promote this in rural areas is very, very different from what is needed in urban areas. Their policies are encouraging the closure of village shops, post offices, pubs and schools, and thereby making villages less like communities and more like dormitories. Property prices and conservation areas don't help either - young villagers starting families often have no choice, financially, but to move to towns and cities. So it's terrific to see one group of villages fighting back against these serious threats to rural community cohesion, and using a very 21st-century tool to do it. (It's a great read, too!)

Submitted by Helen Kara, 12 April 2008

Although widely decried, it is a fact of modern life that affluent city dwellers now seek the tranquillity and quality of life offered by villages. The problems that this can create for existing rural communities have been well documented.

As an isolated village, Parwich suffers from the classic rural privations such as the lack of public transport, the recent loss of the village shop and the scarcity of affordable housing. Despite this, the villagers, old and new show a remarkable spirit and ingenuity to overcome these problems.

Parwich.org is a clear example of how a village can unite to address the needs of the whole community. As a resident of Parwich, I see this at first hand. Every community has its schisms, and ours is no different. There is no question that the weblog is bringing everyone together for the mutual support of the entire village (the spirit of inclusion is driving us to find ways of disseminating the information from the blog to those without internet access). It is a source of great pride to see how all sectors of the village, old and new, can unite through the weblog. Its’ instant success demonstrates how the medium, when enthusiastically and creatively embraced, can bring unprecedented benefits and cohesion to a community which would otherwise be considered under threat.

I hope that Parwich.org can act as a beacon to help other villages overcome the problems they face, helping to establish modern, inclusive patterns of rural living.

Submitted by Kevin Slater, 12 April 2008