Here is a Throwback Thursday which takes us back to one of the first blog post we shared here at Ballymena Today. We know lots and lots of local Ballymena people have joined our community over the past months and would like to reintroduce you to what we do! Here we go……
Through social networks we can harness the power of the Internet to help the town in which we live.
As a team of thedirectorypage.com, now ballymena.today, we all have many different talents and characteristics but the one thing that unites us all is our desire to see our town improve. While we appreciate modern technology and the Internet we still love the good old fashioned values of knowing our neighbour and supporting them. For the last 3 years, as we said in one of our first blogs we have been “building something”. We now are really excited about how thedirectorypage.com has been shaped into ballymena.today with even more possibilities. We are really thankful and appreciative of all those who have been supporting us in our vision of building this site and their desire to support the community. There have been times when it has been extremely challenging however, we have remained as determined as ever. Most of this has been due to the many positive stories and comments that have made it worthwhile and have kept us going.
While the Internet can offer us many things, it is still different from the real world.
Real community is about the shop owner, the teacher, the farmer, the volunteer, the family…..it’s all about the people.”
Our town has a lot of talented people and a lot to offer. Bit by bit, through we have been steadily reaching more and more people from so many different areas and relaying positive stories from businesses, organisations and education sectors. It has been wonderful to hear how we have helped to make a difference to those in our community and many have been encouraged as a result.
We still have a lot to do. We know it is not just about us and that we can not do this alone….. we need you. We need you to share the stories with each other and tell each other in the community what others are doing. With an increased awareness we will have more opportunity to mutually support each other and in so doing help our town and our community. Imagine if we knew of an offer in a shop that would be useful to us. Imagine if more people knew about a local fundraising event. Imagine schools running a play or an open day which needed community support. Imagine the young person starting out on a new business venture getting a helping hand from those in the community. There are so many opportunities when we use the power of the Internet and social networks to connect together. We don’t need years of planning and strategies to share what we are doing with our friends and family… it is that simple.
Let’s see how far we can take the story of our town to others… let’s see how high we can climb.
That is what we are about here at Ballymena Today.