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What's Going on in Cookham?

(updated 27 February 2005)

Some bright yellow signs (with a blotch of red in the middle) appeared around Cookham on Friday, promoting Cookham.com.  It was the idea of Lynda Mallett who felt that all residents of Cookham should be aware of the Cookham website. The estate agents, Pike Smith and Kemp, who are located in Lower Road, along with Fine Signs made it happen. The website has become very central to what is happening in Cookham, as anyone can contribute and many people do, telling the Webmaster about their news, activites and events. Also anyone can add their events themselves and the discussion board has had a wide variety of topics including the 'Cookham is boring' thread that has been mentioned around the country as it was one of the longest discussions for any village. 

Cookham.com was set up in 1998 by Webmaster Julian Bell who lived in Cookham Village. In fact initially Julian had only intended to provide the site for Cookham Village. In 1999 in time for the Millennium, cookham.com was launched at the Chartered Institute of Marketing with a revamped look designed by Simon Bysshe, which is as it is today. The name cookham.com had already been purchased by Mike Mather who lives in Cookham Dean and he very kindly donated the name to Cookham and supports the costs. At the Millennium, the Chartered Institute of Marketing allowed their facilities to be used for an internet café and the Royal Borough lent six computers. This ran for two weeks with helpers from around the area acting as teachers.  It was an event where all ages got together and eighty year olds were seen to being taught by fourteen year olds.  One elderly gentleman discovered BMW's website on the internet and was very keen on buying a silver model, luckily he had left his credit card at home and so his wife said NO!!

Cookham.com has grown enormously since then and now consists of over 1,000 pages.  It was originally hosted on Freeserve with 15 megabytes of free space. It is now hosted on a 600mb server which is supported by Jane Saunders who lives in Cookham Dean.  The internet has changed enormously in that time, lessons now take place at Elizabeth House and also the new Library has an internet room which anyone can use for free. Broadband has come to Cookham as well which means that the internet is really coming into its own.

To all those who have come to cookham.com for the first time having seen the bright yellow signs, WELCOME, we hope that you will come back and visit us again. Also PLEASE give us your news, photos, comments and suggestions. You are the people who make cookham.com an important part of our community.

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