Did you know that as of the end of January, Visit Scunthorpe will have been running for a year? What started out as "wouldn't it be a good idea if" kind of concept now has over 200 members all from the local community and between 80 and 120 unique visitors a day. Quite a range really but I guess it depends upon how many news articles we've published. Being truly independent all the articles on this site are written by members of the public without journalistic training or contacts. Its just local people who care for their community and want to tell others about what's going on. A true reflection of "Grass roots" news and views. This approach does of course have its problems, as we are all "amateurs" it's often difficult to find time to research, photograph and blog as much as we'd like, so updates can some times be erratic. However, not having paid / professional journalists working on the site does ensure that the views that people are posting are their own and not following an employer's agenda. The most important thing to me however is the articles which people contribute. Admittedly this started out as a blog for my own brand of left of centre politics, and I offer no apologies for this. But I do think that on the whole my political views reflect generally what many in North Lincolnshire think, and this is reflected in the voting record for the region. I'm also very proud of the fact that we have people who's views are different to mine using the site regularly and posting their own articles and comments about what's going on in the area. This is exactly the kind of cross section I wanted to capture a year ago when I set up the site, and I'm very pleased with how the site's developed. Again being independent and community led this encourages a very broad editorial policy, and providing that there is no slander, incitement to violence, racial or religious hatred, and that posters avoid name calling, the vast majority of articles remain on the site in their original form. What this experiment has shown is that a lot can be achieved through organic growth on the internet without the need to spend a fortune on advertising, or to rely on mass sponsorship or advertising to fund the service. I've always wanted to keep the web site advert free, and have managed to do so, which I think does add credibility to the site and allows for an uncluttered layout focusing on the user led content. I've had some offers of advertising and / or sponsorship for the site, but have decided (despite being very keen on having the revenue) that this would limit creative freedom. I already have enough of a nightmare ensuring that the basic rules are followed by posters and would not like to have to then give consideration to the impact which stories might have on my sponsors! To conclude however, I just wanted to give a big thank you to all members, readers and contributors to the site, and to encourage any one who has not already signed up and left some comments or posted an article to have a go and tell us what's going in their part of the world.