Visitors
The website has just had its 1st birthday. The numbers of people visiting the website continue to grow.www.springtowncamp.com has had over 30,000 visits in its first year .Between January and Febuary 2006 the website had 1,900 visits where as between November and Dec 2006 we had just over 11,500 visits.

The primary reason for setting up the website is as valid now as it was a year ago,?this is what I wrote then??I have just launched the new www.springtowncamp.com website.The primary aim of the website is to collect and preserve any material that is connected to the history of Springtown Camp. The archiving of this material I feel is extremely important.Anyone who has any material in terms of Photographs,movie clips etc that we could use on www.springtowncamp.com please contact me on the website at the various places listed below.Any material donated to the website will have the greatest of care taken with it and will be returned to the owner quickly.?Stories,memories or anecdotes from the residents of Springtown Camp about their time spent living there, form a key part of the history of the Camp.I would like to encourage anyone who would have any of this material to contact us.?I think that Springtown Camp and its place in history of Derry is secure.Springtown Camp was unique in many ways and its a story that needed to be told and recorded.The telling of this story was done by by a small group of people of whom I am not one.These people have worked tirelessly over many years to keep the history of Springtown Camp in the public consciousness. The Springtown Camp community themselves who after the closing of the Camp were scattered all around the globe have of course played there part in the preservation.Any event that was organized in terms of Springtown Camp re-unions etc have been hugely successful with Springtowners from all over the world turning up in there thousands to re-aquaint themselves with there neighbours and friends. Growing up in Springtown Camp I would suggest has had huge influence on who I am and how i view the world, for good or ill

www.springtowncamp.com I hope in its own small way play a part in the telling of the story of Springtown Camp.Just as the story has been secured in terms of social history in the real world my hope would be that its story would also be secured in terms of the internet and the virtual world and people having access to it now and way into the future. ?`
Forum

A forum has been established so people can communicate with each other in regard to their memories, or indeed just to keep in touch.?The success of www.springtowncamp.com for me will be determined by those who visit the website.This will not be just in terms of numbers of visitors but in terms of people reconnecting with people they had not heard from in years, they will be the lifeblood of the website this will be the real success story in my view. In a years time I hope to be writing a report on how well www.springtowncamp.com has lived up to its manifesto as it were.Only time will tell if what this will be.?Please feel free to email Hugo, chat to him online through the forum, or indeed, if you're really up with the latest technologies, Skype Hugo through the link to the right and have a one-to one chat.

2008

Well that was a year ago and here we are in January 2008.I think that www.springtowncamp.com has achieved its objectives to date and a lot more besides.www.springtowncamp.com has moved from being solely an archiving vehicle for all things Springtown Camp to being a direct and living link to our past,present and hopefully our future. Old friendships have been rekindled.Speaking personally I have had some wonderful correspondence from people from my past, not just from people who lived in Springtown Camp but other areas of Derry and further a field.I have also made new aquaintances people who I would never have met if the website did not exist.I hope other people have had the same experience. ?One year on I could never have imagined the way in which the website has developed. The people who use the www.springtowncamp.com in ever increasing numbers have in a way taken ownership of the website

Contributors

www.springtowncamp.com has been blessed by having a wide range of people people contributing to the website.These are people who have made www.springtowncamp.com so popular among its visitors, these are also the people who I refered to a year ago in my first musings on the website as being the life blood of the website. I dont want to start naming names for fear I leave someone out but I am confident that these people know who I am talking about and recognise themselves.So to anyone who has contributed to the website over this past year on what ever level please take a well deserved a bow.?Visitors to www.springtowncamp.com?One of the most satisfying things for me in terms of the visitors to website is not only the numbers but the international spread that there is.America,Australia,Canada,Europe, England ,Scotland and wales and of course Ireland.Now I realize that all these people may have not been born or indeed lived in Springtown Camp but i see them as part of the great diaspora and therefore are warmly welcomed by the people of Springtown Camp. And as www.springtowncamp.com moves forward in 2008 the design and features on the website will reflect this
Plans for the Future

I think the main difference between the beginning of the this year 2008 and the beginning of last year 2007 when www.springtowncamp.com was launched was then I did not have a clue what was going to happen and how the website was going to develop.A lot of the ideas I had for the website then came from our contributors and visitors.This year 2008 will be different.I have a much clearer picture of what i want to do and how I want to take the website forward.I have new features an abundance of material waiting to be added to the website.
Hugo