Topics this issue include;
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| 1. Apologies Having mentioned all about Notty Hornblower and her first class and much publicised Costume Museum and Restoration Workshop (at Hope House, Alstonefield, Nr Ashbourne, Derbyshire, DE6 2GE) and also having advised that at the end of February, Notty's own website with much information and photographs had been launched onto the internet, I then made the cardinal sin of omitting the actual address for the website!
I do apologise to everyone, but more especially to Notty, for my error, but wish to put the matter straight now, by including her website address here;- www.hopehousemuseum.co.uk
I do hope that you'll visit the site, or, if you're in the area of Alstonefield, the Costume Museum itself.
I also noticed (after sending everything last month) that although I'd shown items 3 and 4, within the body of the eNewsletter itself, there were actually two item 3's! I don't know, I'm either getting old before my time (please don't agree with that!) or I didn't spend long enough last month in ensuring that everything was correct before I emailed everything (you can agree with that). Anyway, it's taught me a lesson, and hopefully I'll be extra careful from now on.
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| 2. Sad News I was so sorry to hear of the recent death of Peggy Powditch of Didcot, Oxfordshire, who died on 30 March, in her 86th year.
Peggy, whose actual name was Margaret Beryl Powditch, had been born in Guernsey, Channel Islands, in June 1920, her maiden name being 'Domaille', and she had married Raymond Urban Powditch (another Guernsey-ite) around the outbreak of World War 2 - details of which can be accessed and read in Chapter 12 of my book, "Peerless Powditch's; Vol.3; Norfolk Vacated" - accessible from the following link;
www.powditch.plus.com/Peerless Powditch/pp_chapter_12.htm
Many years ago, I was thrilled to meet not only Peggy and Ray, his brother, Rex, with his wife, Ursula, and their sister, Dorothy - my having gone to Didcot to meet them all whilst their sister was over from the USA (where she lives). All represented the last members of the Guernsey (Channel Islands) branch of the Powditch family and with Peggy having been the only Guernsey-born 'spouse' amongst Ray's brothers and sisters, it was really a chance for them to share their memories etc with me, which I much appreciated, and we all had a lovely time together; memories which I treasure.
I do hope that you will join me in sending thoughts and prayers to Peggy's children and grandchildren.
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| 3. Powditch Gathering 2006 - an update Hopefully you've not only received your emailed information re this September's Family Gathering, but you've also had a chance to look through all the details. I do hope that there was something to whet your appetite, and I look forward to hearing from you as to whether you are (or aren't) coming.
Should you have any questions you need answering, I'm always available, either by phone (see very bottom of this email), snail-mail (also at the bottom), or by email, and don't forget, if you are only able to come for 1, 2 or all of the days, we'd love to see you.
More information will be in the next eNewsletter, and any updated details are added and amended on the website (accessible from www.powditch.plus.com/ )
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| 4. Just be aware...! Although I have mentioned this before, I do want to stress that if you receive an email from 'admin @ powditch.plus.com' (I've left spaces so that the latter doesn't become a working email address) whoever is sending such emails, it most certainly isn't me!
The emails from the admin address (I don't have such an address, let alone a 'department'!) refers to Account Details needing verification (or other themes revolving around the same subject). Whatever you do, do not respond to that email or click on any of its internal links. I have been trying to discover the ISP for the sender so that a stop to the sender can be implemented, but in the meantime, what i would suggest you do is to add the admin@ email address to your Blocked Senders List (in Outlook Express, go to Tools > Message Rules > Blocked Senders List, then click on the 'add' button, and then in the 'Add Sender' Address box, type in admin @ powditch.plus.com (without the gaps), 'tick' the 'Mail and News' circle, and then click on the OK button, then OK in the next screen. Although the latter will put any incoming emails from that address into your 'Deleted Items' box, at least you will be able to delete such emails from there without opening or reading them!
Thanks for your patience with the above, and hopefully the 'problem' will go away soon!
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| 5. News and 6. Welcome Due to the lateness of this month's eNewsletter, both topics will now appear in the next issue (April), although I'd like to welcome to this edition of the eNewsletters, all those who have contacted me since the last issue.
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| 7. Useful? information SiteProNews regularly send emails to me highlighting changes and providing much useful information re all aspects of web-sites, and having received the following, I thought that I would both try it out for myself, and also share the details with you. What they wrote, was as follows;-
"I wondered how many people actually type in their address bar (address bar?) instead of using a search engine anyway. I didn't find the answer, but Jupiter Media tells me that 64% of people looking for something use a search engine.
That means that 36% of people use something other than a search engine. What makes me believe that people typing stuff into their address bar doesn't happen much is this simple fact...of the people using search engines last November, 43% searched for common websites like Ebay. In other words, instead of typing in http://www.ebay.com, people Googled Ebay and clicked on one of the results. That is absolutely hysterical. And totally believable."
To put all that into more meaningful words, instead of your going to one of the popular search engines (Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, AlltheWeb etc) and typing in what you are wanting to find, just left click in the 'address' box at the top of your Internet Explorer (or alternative) page, and type in what you are wanting to find, there (your typing will override anything in the address box), and then click on 'Go' (to the right of the said box). To put it another way, instead of leaving your home page and clicking on Google or any other search engine, your search can actually be made from the page on which you are working (less clicks for you to make!)
I have used this method from time to time and have found it useful, although whether it highlights as many websites as any of the other search engines, I can't really say. It's certainly worth looking at for yourself; I just hope that the suggestion will be useful for you.
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| 8. Website updates Since the last eNewsletter (No.31, for February 2006), changes to the website have included the following; Amendments, Updates and New Pages
 the new Home page www.powditch.plus.com/ is up and running, and I'm looking forward to your letting me know what you think of it! As at yesterday, I have also changed what had been the .htm version of the Home Page to be identical to its .html counterpart (it was getting confusing to have two versions of the same page!) All of the www.powditch.plus.com/2006PowditchGathering/ pages have been both updated and amended, and besides a copy of the full letter, Registration Form, Costs, Itinerary, etc having now been included, there is also a 'Profit and Loss' page which will keep track of my present outgoings for the event, and later (once they arrive) deposits. By keeping this section updated, family members will be able to monitor the financial side of the Gathering. Some Birthdays and Anniversaries have been both added and removed from the section, www.powditch.plus.com/BirthsAndAnniversaries/index.htm I have added details re Peggy Powditch's death to the Events page (see www.powditch.plus.com/Events/index.htm ) as well as to the News section The Latest News section has been updated, at www.powditch.plus.com/News/latest_news.htm In next month's eNewsletter, I should have news of an exciting addition to the website (currently undergoing testing); one which I hope will be very interesting.
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| 9. Dial-up vs Broadband At the moment, I am still on dial-up for all my internet use, even though Broadband is now available in this area, and I wondered how many of my 'readers' have upgraded to BB over the past year. Up til now, the main reason for my being in the dark ages, is because I am aware that in the past, most visitors to the Powditch website were also dial-uppers, and by my designing web-pages that would open quickly for the latter, I was helping them. Should the majority now have BB connections, it would be more sensible for me to also go that way, so please can you let me know your comments? Incidentally, I don't know whether you heard about some recent statistics, but apparently the largest number of individuals within the world who have signed up for and use, Broadband, are not in the USA, but here in the UK. Another statistic is that the greatest number of computer/internet users in the world (3 out of every 4 persons) live in Vietnam. Amazing! |
| 10. Making Money from the website? Now, here's an emotive subject to think about and discuss!
As you know, every part of my Powditch research, the family archive, and the Powditch website (plus lots of other things I do and have done over the years) is undertaken totally at no charge whatsoever, to any person, Powditch or non-Powditch, it having been my hobby, my interest (and some would say my 'obsession'!) since the early 1980s.
Being a non-smoker, who has a drink but seldomly, and who has very few vices other than the enjoyments of gardening, walking our dog and having a wonderful time with our grandchildren, has allowed me to fund everything from my own pocket over the years.
Even though (as everyone is fully aware) fuel bills, Council Tax, Insurances and just about anything else we have to have (except for food, electricals and general homeware), seems to be increasing month on month, I am still 'holding on in there' (as I think the expression goes?!)
Certainly the above is not a preliminary to requesting any financial help for what I do or intend to do, but it is said just to illustrate that there may be a way to partly finance future research etc into the Powditch family.
As you may have noted on many websites (not the Powditch site) there are graphic links to external sites; a classic one being to 'Amazon' (the books-to-just-about-everything-else, site). In many instances, those graphic links (which could just be a logo) are there because of what are known as Partner or Affiliate deals between the site owner and the Company being 'advertised'.
Within the past couple of months, I have noted that several of the sites I've visited, are offering a percentage of 'sales made' through visitors clicking on specific links, and then ordering goods from the respective Companies. Furthermore, I am aware of several website owners who are only able to maintain their sites through such 'activities' of their visitors - one such site being www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/ which I can sincerely recommend to anyone having an interest in the Churches of Norfolk and Suffolk.
Visiting that (or any other site having such graphic links) does not cost anyone anything, in the same way that visiting the Powditch site doesn't cost anything, BUT, should you (whilst you are visiting the site) decide that you would like to visit the Amazon site (for instance), or if there was another link which proved to be of interest to you, and then you went on to buy a book, or anything else, then a percentage of that sale would be paid to the owner of the site on which the link resides.
Having set the scene (so to speak), what I would like to know from you, is whether you have any objections to such a 'fund-raising' scheme being employed on the Powditch website? Of course, any graphic links would not be placed anywhere on the page to detract from the 'valuable' family information already there, but as you already have seen, I do already have graphic links to 3 sites, namely the 'Archive Awareness Campaign', 'SafeSurf' and to my ISP (PlusNet) - none of which fall into the 'Partner or Affiliate deals' (although if I did choose to, PlusNet do operate a similar scheme).
Further to all of the above, I would just add the following;-
that unless a purchaser spends a vast sum on buying goods after going to the respective site, the percentage of each sale is very small (approx 1+%), so I would not expect the links to generate a lot of revenue for research purposes, whilst
from the time the website went 'live' in January 2003 up to the end of February 2006, the Powditch website has attracted some 77430 visitors, the majority of whom had viewed several pages at a time.
Based on the normal premise of advertising versus sales, where it is generally accepted that 100% of advertising might produce only 1% of sales (and anything in excess of that is a bonus!) and taking the number of visitors to the website to date, I would advise that should I have introduced the 'graphic links' scenario from the outset (and 1% of everyone - i.e. 774 persons - had bought something), it is quite possible that over the past 3 years a sum of £77.40 (i.e. 774 purchasers x 1% of £10 (i.e. £0.10 = £77.40) might have been generated, if the item purchased had cost £10 to each.
Please let me know your feelings (either way) on this subject.
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| 11. ......and finally! If you haven't done so already, please make a note in your diaries for the Second Powditch Family Gathering, which is being held this year, from Thursday (afternoon) 14 September to Sunday (lunchtime) 17 September, at Morston, Norfolk. Besides the details on the website, you should have received an email with everything included (Letter, plus Registration Form, plus costs, plus full details etc) and for those who don't have access to a computer, they have also been sent (via snail-mail).
As ever, I do thank you ever so much for being a reader of this eNewsletter, and moreso, for being either a Powditch or a Powditch-descendant.
Looking forward to hearing from you sometime, especially if you have any news (either for the website or for the Powditch Archive), and please remember that you are receiving this email as you are either a Powditch, a Powditch descendant, or have a connection to the greater family, and as such, you have been an user of the www.powditch.plus.com/ website.
Also, If you would prefer not to receive the Powditch eNewsletter in the future, you may simply send me an email with the word "unsubscribe from Powditch eNewsletter" in the mail subject, together with a reason or reasons (stated within the body of your email) for your wishing to unsubscribe. Incidentally, should you wish to unsubscribe from the eNewsletters but still receive other emails from me, and also to keep receiving my (snail-mail) Powditch Christmas Cards and annual Newsletters, please will you state that clearly on such unsubscribing emails. Thanks,
John
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