Dulwich OnView is nearly a year old. What a year 2008 has been!
As a group of volunteers we have had so much fun creating and developing this online magazine. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our quirky (and sometimes rather peculiar) articles. Here’s a quick round up of some of our highlights of the year from the editors.
Yang-May Ooi
My favourite experience of being part of DOV has been meeting so many talented and creative people who are part of the editorial team and also who make up our many contributors. Before I moved here to Dulwich, I thought that the suburbs would be rather dull and sleepy, full of tired commuters coming home to blog in front of the telly. In fact, through my involvement with DOV I have met a lot of interesting writers, photographers, musicians and film makers and have had a better local social life then when I used to live in trendy Pimlico!
I also find that when I am wandering around Dulwich or other parts of South London or I meet new people in the area, I am engaging in a much more actively because in the back of my mind, I am thinking, “This might make an interesting post for DOV.” When we go about our busy daily lives, we can take a lot of things for granted so being involved in a community like DOV has sparked me to be more actively curious and open to everything that is around me.
Anna Sayburn
These are a few of the articles I remember enjoying reading:
Amanda Greatorex writing about her travels in China
Sara Lloyd’s photographs of the Grange Lane allotments
Anna di Brina reflecting on wedding portraits
Angie MacDonald’s piece on the birth of the famous A to Z London street map
Angie MacDonald
Back in March I interviewed my 86 year-old neighbour, Glyn Davies. Glyn is a familiar figure in Court Lane, out in all weathers chatting to passers-by and tending to his and the neighbours’ gardens. In the interview he happened to mention that Anne Shelton, a popular singer from the 1940s and 1950s, used to live a couple doors down from him.
A couple of weeks later Anne Shelton’s niece, Kelly Richards, left a comment on the site, saying she remembered Glyn and had written a book about her aunt. I then contacted her and asked her to write an article for Dulwich OnView about her memories of growing up in Dulwich with Anne Shelton. Kelly kindly contributed 3 signed copies of her book to a Dulwich OnView prize draw.
Then the current owner of Anne Shelton’s former home, Jeremy Prescott, left a comment to say the Southwark Council had awarded Anne Shelton a Blue Plaque. Jeremy then went on to write a couple of articles for Dulwich OnView and I met him and Kelly Richards at his Open Garden in the summer, which was publicised on Dulwich OnView.
In the meantime several Anne Shelton fans had come out of the woodwork and left comments on the blog. This thread finally culminated in an article in October on the unveiling of the Blue Plaque. The beauty of this story is that none of it was planned – it all happened because people were able to leave comments on the site and interact with each other. This is why I love the blog platform and why I love Dulwich OnView. It brings people together.
Sally-Ann Johnson
DulwichOnView, affectionately known as ‘DOV’, was born in the pub – the Crown & Greyhound in Dulwich Village to be precise – in January 2008. Thanks to fellow editor Ingrid’s amazing talent for networking and bringing like-minded folk together, a group of us who barely knew each other turned up on a certain evening, unsure what to expect except to participate in a discussion about starting some sort of ‘alternative’ Dulwich Gallery website.
A few glasses of wine later, we’d all bonded and made our first executive decision: to start DOV! The plan was to reach and entice a whole, new, diverse audience to the Gallery, but in a way that was both differentiated and complementary to their official web site. This would be achieved by setting the Gallery in the context of the local community in an informal celebratory style.
So here we are – it’s December. Beyond expectation, DOV has metamorphosed from an idea in pub to a vibrant community-oriented blog that has not only added value to the Gallery, but attracted the attention and interest of the museum world at large! It’s proving a win-win all round – for our readers, our contributors, the team of volunteers who keep DOV afloat, the many artists, local societies, groups and individuals who have either written, been the subject of, or benefitted from DOV articles. Most of all, we believe that DOV has generated excitement about the Gallery in an innovative way.
So the highlight of the year for me is the remarkable speed with which DOV has evolved, coupled with the fact that so many have benefitted from what started with a brain nugget and a group of strangers! Here’s to DOV in 2009!
Steve Slack
And finally, here are some stats about what started out as a little community online magazine:
In under one year we posted 342 articles on the blog and have attracted over 53,000 hits. Wow, that’s a lot for a volunteer-run project!
The most read article on DOV this year was a piece Ian Betterton from the DPG shop about selling pin-cushions in the form of St Sebastian. These cute toys were hugely successful in the shop and the article attracted over 1300 hits.
And the good news is that there’s plenty more to come on DOV in 2009.
We’re going to take a short break in January, to catch our breath, but we’ll be back very soon. Do check back with us twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) from mid-January.
If you don’t want to miss out on any new articles, you can subscribe to our weekly news feed, which gives you a run down on all new content each Wednesday, right into your inbox. To subscribe, click here.
Thanks to all our supporters and friends for helping us on our way in 2008.
What was your favourite article on DOV this year? Do let us know below.
