Our History
This website is dedicated to the memory of Marion Strawhorne. Without Marion’s friendship, encouragement and creative input, this website would not have been possible.
Marion was a dear friend, who cared about not just her family and friends, but the community around her as well. Nothing was too much trouble for Marion, she always put everyone else before herself. It was Marion’s kind nature, friendship, influence, love and more that formed the basis of this website. Before her passing in July 2023, Marion helped create this website and played a key part, not just in the design and format but also in the development too, and more besides. It is thanks to Marion we are here. For this reason, Community News Hertfordshire is dedicated to the memory of Marion.
Community News began as a small part of a residents association Facebook page, posting events in their local area of Watford.
During spring of 2020 when the first COVID lockdown was introduced, we started posting online activities and games on their Facebook page, and it quickly became apparent that many other people across Watford might be interested too. Being restricted to just posting in one small local area of Watford, an idea grew.
In June 2020, we decided to start a Facebook group, and Community News was born. At first posting events and activities across Watford and then introducing courses and helplines to the page. Within 6 months, Community News had grown to a thousand members.
By the start 2021, and in a third lockdown, Community News Facebook continued to expand, and was advertising events etc, happening in the surrounding areas of Watford. The group itself was also growing and in March 2021 it reached 2000 members.
During the rest of that year, Community News started to have members joining from across Hertfordshire, so it seemed natural to start sharing events and activities on the page covering a wider area, which included St. Albans and Hemel Hempstead.
Boxing Day 2021, the Facebook page Community News had a fantastic Christmas present, as it reached a new milestone in just 18 months of 3000 members, and another idea was forming.
On February 4th 2022, the creation of this website went live, and during the next six months the website grew, with more pages being added and a easier to read format was introduced. By November the website was getting hundreds of views per week and was now established as a website for the whole of Hertfordshire, covering areas of north, east, south and west Hertfordshire. The Facebook page was continuing to grow as well and by November 2022 had over 4,300 members, and one year later was heading towards 5,800 members. By March 2024 the Facebook page passed 6,000 members.
During 2023 the website under went a few changes as the Analytics showed what pages were proving popular and which was not. Some pages were developed further, whilst others were replaced. The website continued to grow with users and as we moved through 2024, it continued to be a great help and a reliable source of information for all those that use it, with hundreds of users per week. We added in 2024 our Visit Hertfordshire and Parks and open spaces pages, which have proved popular. In the three months leading up to December 2024 we had nearly 10,000 visitors to the website.
In February 2025 we reached our third anniversary, and as we became the home of what’s on and places to visit website, we introduced a new homepage, and broke new records. By the summer of 2025, we were having a steady four thousand users per month, and the three months from March – April 2025, we had twelve thousand visitors to the website. A record for a three month period for us. Back in the spring of this year we also started our Instagram page, which is also proving popular, as is our Facebook page and X (formerly Twitter) page. Going forward we are hoping to promote these social media pages more, so that we can reach a wider audience of the community of Hertfordshire.
