Launched back in 2001, virtual-lancaster is a project for the local community and people visiting, or wanting more information about, Lancaster and Morecambe in the UK (Lancashire) and surrounding area.
This site is independent of large media corporations or any official bodies. Wholly owned and operated by community members. Please read the terms of use.
Mission Statement
Our aim is to develop a locally-based Internet Site which will:
Encourage and support local talent and initiatives – and the development of an online community.
Reflect and respond to the diverse interests and needs of local people – individuals and enterprises.
Provide an essential guide to the area for visitors, potential visitors and newcomers, or those just wanting more info.
Promote Lancaster + Morecambe to the world, to stimulate interest and opportunities and new possibilities that benefit all.
Our immediate objectives are:
To create a user-friendly KEY SITE for the area, with links to as many other relevant sites/resources as possible.
To provide a free and independent platform to represent the genuine interests of local people.
To provide a public forum / threaded message board where individuals and/or groups can express and exchange views and ideas.
To provide free space for the posting of notices and ‘classified ads’ of interest to others who might use the site.
To create comprehensive listings of forthcoming events, venues, entertainment and attractions, local groups and organisations, institutions, businesses, services and individuals in the area.
To create a functional and informative guide to the area, with both the local community and visitors in mind.
To provide virtual gallery space to showcase the work – and celebrate the creativity – of local people.
It’s still early days for the site and much remains to be done. We will continue to work toward these aims and objectives to bring you the definitive guide and online resource for the Lancaster + Morecambe Area in the UK and the surrounding area.
Thank you for your interest.
Get Involved
All work is undertaken on a voluntary (unpaid) basis by dedicated members of the local community, in their spare time. If you’d like to get involved, as a member of our review team or in a technical or editorial capacity, large or small, please contact us.
Other ways to support our efforts include; using the site regularly (as your main source of info. online about the area), making use of the extensive features and resources provided … and by telling others about the site (email all your friends online, and mention it down the pub). Cheers!
Credits
The people who keep this site together can be contacted via the Editor are:
• John Freeman News Editor, created the 1980s local events magazines On the Beat and worked on later issues of Off the Beat.
Former Staff
This is not a complete list. Our previous team members include…
• Satori is one of our founders and former site editor. She lives with many, many cats.
• Chris Elleray Had a roving brief….
• Paul Ely was the original developer and designer of the site. Paul left Lancaster back around the turn of the century and is currently giving a number of other interesting projects the benefit of his immense skill and experience.
• Rob Lewsey MIA
• Jane Sunderland Virtual Lancaster Review Team
• Dean Marshall, consultant and all round IT genius based at CityLab in Lancaster, kindly hosted the original site, gives us brilliant development advice and tech support and is patiently helping us develop our new joomla-based site.
Arts + Photography
• Ian Casement of Accolade-Photography supplied us with lots of superb photos of Lancaster & Morecambe.
Photographs: If you pass your mouse over photographs on this site, the name of the photographer may pop up (where we know it). We’re very grateful to the people who have supplied us with images that keep the site looking interesting and show what a rather attactive community we are!
Please Note: Photos can only be shown at low resolution on the internet and we need to keep the filesizes low so they don’t take all day to come up on your screens. This means that despite careful editing they lose much of their original clarity and subtlety of colour and are cut and shrunk so that much interesting detail is lost. They are not remotely representative of the true quality of the original images as they can be seen in print or on a photographic slide and we emphasise that they really don’t do justice to the skills of the photographers. So we are very grateful indeed to those photographic artists generous enough to still let us make use of their pictures despite this.