The highest town in Tas, Fern Tree launches new website
04/Nov/2009
The Fern Tree community in Tasmania launched their community website at a local quiz night last weekend, with over sixty community members in attendance. The website group gave away geographic email addresses to a lucky few on the day.
Set beneath majestic Mount Wellington, whose summit is at 1270 meters above sea level, Fern Tree is 13 km from Hobart’s central business district and the highest town in Tasmania. According to webmaster John Harbinson, “The launch gave us impetus, now we will proceed with adding and refining the content as we see the need and as the community responds. One of our major areas of interest, sustainability, will be a priority.”
The Ferntree community saw the need for a community website earlier to replace the existing printed community newsletter which s distributed to over 450 households. According to Mr. Harbinson, other benefits of the Fern Tree community site include, “The Fern Tree Community Website has been created for a number of reasons, including the opportunities it will give to enhance awareness of Fern Tree's cultural and historical heritage and to provide a tool which has the potential to provide a greater connection between those who live up here. The added feature of geographical email addresses, ability for local enterprise to be publicised and links with important information sources such as the Tasmanian Fire Service create an effective communication tool.” Mr. Harbinson hopes that over time the use of the new Fern Tree website by the community will encourage more participation in community events.
