Our Blog made its first unsteady attempts to toddle into cyberspace during the last week of October, 2009. Initial attempts to master the ether were so incompetently conducted that almost everything produced during the following fortnight has now been lost from our archives. The earliest entry to have survived is headed "The New Forest R.C.Churches Website", and the title was supposed to link to the Pastoral Area site, but our technical skill didn't match our optimism, so the link doesn't quite link. We were also uncertain of what to do on our blog, and so were watching other blogs closely to see what they were doing. One of the comments on that first entry reads:
Aardvark has been poking his nose into the blogs of some other churches, to see what they do. He started by digging into the blog of the St Expedite Independent Catholic Church, which has found a unique way of rewarding its bloggers. Their blog is run by the Archbishop himself, and he has the perfect answer to the current shortage of clergy. He simply ordains all his followers. If you log into their blog, you can ".... become a priest straight away." Or you can even ".... have a diocese of your own." Sadly. however, there's appears to be a definite lack of laity - St Expedite's has a total congregation of twenty-one!
Now, two years later, instant priesthoods are still available. However, St Expedite's is no longer offering bishoprics in its online advertisement. Perhaps they've run out of mitres.
But what about us? Well, during those two years you lovely readers have visited our blog more than 13,412 times, and are continuing to visit it nearly 300 times a week. You come from all over the world:
...... and so on. And you've arrived on our site in a number of different ways. During these two years .......
2690 of the visits we had were through www.google.com
979 through one of the links from our Pastoral Area website at www.newforestrcchurches.co.uk
605 through our link on the British Catholic Blogs site at www.britcat.blogspot.com
but only 238 through typing out our own address www.lymrcchurch.blogspot.com
Of course, the majority of visits are revisits, because most of you have put us in your "Favourites". Our system isn't sophisticated enough to trace your original route when you do that!
2 comments:
Happy Birthday, little OLMSJ Blog! I didn't realise you were still in your infancy when I stumbled into your Comments Box about ten months ago. I follow a couple of other church blogs based in Sussex, but they're essentially forums to discuss issues within the Catholic Church and social or even political matters with some bearing on the church. The OLMSJ Blog has a very respectful familiarity; a strong feeling of community which becomes a cosiness. It helped me maintain and strengthen links with the town after Mum died and has brought some wonderfully caring people into my life. The international statistics suggest that same comfort has been extended around the globe. Many happy returns to Aardvark and the team - I have a small piece of carrot and ginger cake left which I will now eat in your honour.
Thank you, Gigi, for your kind comment, and we hope you enjoyed that piece of cake.
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