Southend Timeline
Bringing Your Memories Back to Life
Welcome to a special article that takes a look back at the history of the Southend Timeline how and why it was launched and how it has developed over the years, the changes, and the new additions to the timeline family. The Southed Timeline was created to reflect the fascinating history of Southend-on-Sea, to create a major source if information all in one place. The diary style format enables you to look back on a year by year, month by month basis.
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ABOVE: "Piers" was the original logo and mascot of the Southend Timeline, whilst he retired as the official logo, he will be returning as the official mascot. Keep an eye out for him! |
The Southend Timeline was originally launched by Adrian Harris on 18th April 2009, under his custodianship it set a benchmark in what it was striving to achieve to be one of the most comprehensive and concise local history websites dedicated to charting the history of the Borough of Southend-on-Sea.
During the time the Southend Timeline was under the custodianship of Adrian he was approached by Southend ex-pat Brian Mendez, who now lives in Canada, who had the idea to set up and launch a visitors book for anyone to sign, be they returning to Southend for the first time since moving away, returning visitor, first time visitor or a local.
After much work the visitors book opened for the first time on Thursday 18th November 2010, with the Southend Timeline a proud to be launch partner.
I (Nick Skinner) took over the running of the Southend Timeline from Adrian on Friday 28th January 2011, and have been running it ever since. |
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On 18th April 2011 the Southend Timeline launched itself into the world of Social Media when it joined the micro blogging site twitter and can be followed by searching for @NickSouthend.
With increasing numbers of people signing the Sarfend Visitors Book the launch of a dedicated website took place on 21st September 2012 it can be followed by visiting www.sarfendvisitorsbook.com The name Sarfend is taken from the Cockney London pronunciation of Southend, as traditionally Southend was the chosen destination for East Londoners at weekends and Bank Holidays. The logo's design is based on the old corporate colours of the 1949 AC Pier Trains.
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ABOVE: Sarfend Visitors Book logo is based on the colours of the old 1949 Pier Trains
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A new website dedicated to personal stories and memories was launched on 9th July 2013 the Southend Community Archive is still very small but is waiting for you to get in touch with your stories and memories of Southend on Sea with your stories and memories of Southend on Sea with your stories and memories of Southend on Sea. the Southend Community Archive is still very small but is waiting for you to get in touch. http://southendcommunityarchive.weebly.com/ |
RIGHT: The Southend Community Archive banner shows three scenes from a bygone time.
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The year 2014 saw the Southend Timeline celebrating 5 years online, a special logo was created to mark the anniversary. There were a few technical difficulties early in the year resulting in the website being off line for over three weeks, however these were out of my control, to make up for the downtime the host server donated a free two year upgrade which included more online storage and a larger bandwidth allowance, has enabled larger articles to be put together without running the risk of running out of storage or exceeding bandwidth allowance, exceeding the bandwidth allowance would have resulted in either the slowing down of the website or temporary closure until the permitted allowance resets each month. 2014 also saw a special Christmas logo again a play with the official "corporate" logo.
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ABOVE: The Southend Timeline 5th Anniversary logo.
ABOVE: Festive logo used for Christmas 2014. |
Naturally with a local history website those articles that have already posted will eventually need updating, as history never sleeps its always moving forward.
So during 2015 the main focus will be for me to make a few updates to a number of the feature articles currently on the website.
With this in mind I thought it would be nice to have a special logo to go with the updated articles, when a feature article is updated it will appear like all the new features do on the home page but will be highlighted as UPDATED
However there are still a number of completely new feature articles in the pipeline , with three planned to launch by the end of the year along with a couple of special videos.
On the 1sy January 2015 a test of Southend Chat was launched, this is a free service offered by the Southend Timeline in the form of a chat board where you can share a memory or ask for help in finding that little bit of information you might be looking for.
There are other projects planned to tie into the Southend Timeline, these are a long way off as of yet and are very much in the very early stages of planning so much so they are only thoughts and nothing is yet down on paper let along being built on the internet... As we progress through 2015 Southend Timeline will be celebrating it's 6th birthday on the 18th April 2015, watch out on that day for a special logo on the homepage!