Project HappyChild NEWS

1st December 2003

[for ongoing updates, see Latest Site News]

Hi there! As any of you who have visited the site recently will know, we are approaching a major landmark - ten million visits.

While this is wonderful news, the extraordinarily high traffic level is presenting us with not-a-few logistical problems this end :) As most of you will know, we never anticipated this level of visitors before the supplementary resources were completed - nor all the mail that goes with this many people using the site on an ongoing basis. So ..... we've made some highly unusual decisions.

Unusual in that this has probably never been done before on a website quite like this one. But to safeguard the ongoing usefulness and integrity of the whole Project HappyChild site, realistically the only decisions we can make.

Basically we have had to choose between either (a) operating as we are now, fitting in minimal pagebuilding amidst answering an avalanche of mail; or (b) focussing exclusively on the remaining pagebuilding so as to finally complete all the resources for the site as a whole, for the benefit of *everyone* who uses it.

It has come down to a straight choice - spend 30-60 minutes answering a single query from a visitor, or spend the same time building a new page that is available to hundreds of thousands of visitors worldwide. Same goes for updating the Latest News page (30m) vs building one new page, or generating a Newsletter (approx 10 hours for writing, publishing and sending out) vs up to 20 new pages for the site.

You know, of course, what we've decided - we're going to focus exclusively on the pagebuilding :)

As you'll be aware from the October 2003 newsletter, we're aiming for overall completion of resources by mid-October 2004. Being totally pragmatic we're including six weeks' leeway for unforeseen circumstances :) and provisionally scheduling "Site Resources Completion Day" for 1st December 2004.

In the meantime there will be no correspondence, no Latest News updates ..... and no newsletters. *but* the site will still be "open" - you'll be able to access all the new resources "as they're built" -the only difference is that you won't receive any mail from us for the next twelve months :)

So what do we have scheduled for the months ahead? The 8000+ pages of areas already more-or-less-completed include the following:

* free educational resources worldwide * syndromes links index * Project HappyChild Directory of organizations helping children * infinite facts series * accelerated learning * free-to-print system for learning to read * addition * subtraction * learning times tables * division * fractions * French verbs * FOCUS * events * shop * fundraising ideas * resources required * free translation facilities * the Potted Learning pages * Sponsors *

The areas scheduled for completion over the next 12 months are Andy's Guide to Pokémon [which remains the single most popular of our resources used by five to 14-year-olds across the world], Sol's Guide to Harry Potter, French vocabulary and grammar, Keywords for Learning, and Spellings, Sounds and Meanings. However we also need to progress an upgraded version of the Project HappyChild Directory [new version not linked in from the site at all yet], as well as updating and increasing the resources of Schools Interchange and the international Appeals areas.

Altogether we have around 12,000 new pages to create as well as in the region of 1,000 pages to expand and/or modify - which should give us, finally, 20,000 or so up-to-date pages across the site as a whole by this time next year, with a following wind. We can *only* achieve this in such a short time *if* we set everything else aside for the time being.

We trust all our subscribers and visitors will bear with us during this extraordinary period :)

The only additional site "changes" will be the creation of the 2004 Events Calendar (due fairly shortly - see the 2003 calendar for this year's events) and any necessary information changes for the Project HappyChild Directory, as well as URL changes notified to us for other areas of the site. E-mails will still be read! and sometimes acted on, though very rarely replied to :)

Visit counters across the site will be restored whenever time allows [high traffic levels cause these to "crash" fairly regularly at present] - check out our "about us" page for a periodic update on overall visit levels. At time of writing we're approaching 10 million visits overall - ongoing traffic level is around 5 million visits per year at present [3 million "hits" per month recorded by Webalizer] and we are hoping to *double* this visit rate over the year ahead if everything goes according to schedule, pagebuilding-wise.

If you're waiting for any specific areas of the site to be completed, please just keep checking back to the relevant area :) and know that we'll be working flat out to complete everything. If you're on our mailing list, expect an update on everything that's been achieved here, on 1st December 2004.

The ongoing loyalty of visitors to the Project HappyChild site has transformed the experience of building it :) and we trust you will all wish to continue to use and publicise the site's resources during our "year out". Non-communication is hardly ideal :) but, finally, the only practicable course of action if we're to complete what has been asked of us.

Wishing you all a happy Christmas and a dynamic and memorable 2004,

Best regards,

Penny.

******************************************************************
Project HappyChild - linking children all across the world
http://www.happychild.org.uk + + + + Latest News + + + + About Us
******************************************************************