A History of the Binley Park Website.

Sign the BPCS Guestbook View the BPCS Guestbook  

So how did all this begin you may ask?

Well, the Binley Park Website had two factors as my inspiration.

Firstly, back in 1999, I found that by Searching the Internet, as many of you will also have done, not much was appearing in the returned results. Mostly Binley Woods, or Binley Business Park (which is where the School was). I did find one page written by Bob Chaston (see Aylward pages for his own contribution), which was basically a small history of the school and his own Tutor Group picture.

Secondly, I research my Family History, and during a visit to my Mum's house, I had asked for old pictures of the family, and in the box were my sister and my Tutor Group pictures. So, I took them home, and scanned in my 1972 picture, and tried to remember all of the names. This picture was put on my own Website, which one would have to admit isn't the best place to find it! This was around May/Early June 2000.

So, after another attempt to find BPCS related sites on the Internet, using various Search Engines, I had found one or two sources of people who must have been doing the same. Probably the best was CWN's 'Find a School Friend' page (see Links page), which had 10 or so people who'd left their names as Pupils of Binley, one or two of which were familiar. These I noted for later use.

I decided that I'd have a go at trying to put something together, so I drew a couple of pictures (the Site Layout and Aylward/Sargent Layout) from memory, and then created a better page with my own picture, and memories of the people in my House and Form. By this time, I'd written to Ernesford Grange to see if they had any material that might help me complete my list of names. They duly obliged with a Full Intake Register for 1971. I'd now completed about 10 or so pages that constituted the very first site, created the first Guestbook on Geocities.com, and emailed all the people I'd found at CWN. So, a few of those visited the site, and signed the Guestbook, and started spreading the word. I also submitted the Website to several Search Engines for inclusion, so that you'd find us easier.

November 2000 saw a major advancement in the site. A new layout was introduced (the current one), making it much more flexible for me to add new content.

So what about the future? Well, I don't plan on abandoning the idea, despite the continuing popularity and the increased burden that places on me. The success stories alone make it worth my while. So many of you have written words of thanks. During the first year alone, a very successful 1971/76 25th Leavers anniversary reunion took place, I was interviewed for the Time Educational Supplement by Gerald Haigh (a former Cheshire House Head), I did a live slot on BBC CW Radio to promote both the site and the reunion, a letter was published in the CET which has drawn in many new names to the Guestbook (again, it was to promote the reunion).

So here are the milestones along the way (Full details are on the News page)