Subscribers can get weekly email update of town events

By Wiley Wood

Last month, visitors to the town website saw a video showing a little boy, Calvin, climbing the stairs to the viewing platform on Haystack Mountain with his parents’ encouragement. But when Calvin gets to the top of the stairs, he finds himself staring at the stone parapet, too short to look over it and see the stunning view of the Norfolk countryside in mid-summer.

This morsel of internet humor was delivered courtesy of the town’s Economic Development Commission (EDC), which has sponsored a thorough revamping of the website, making room on the home page for current photos or, as in the case of Calvin, videos. This month there is a short promotional video for Weekend in Norfolk, aimed at whetting the appetite of visitors and residents for the upcoming festivities.

The idea, says Bill Brown, who spearheaded the EDC’s website development effort, was to make a website that reflected some of the town’s special qualities—its natural beauty, its sense of community and its culture. “We didn’t want it to be just utilitarian,” says Brown, “but to give an impression of Norfolk.”

And the website does stand out for its visual appeal—lots of photos (and the occasional video), a clear emphasis on design, and an intriguing structure that invites exploration. Even the casual visitor will come away knowing that Norfolk has a curling club, a farmers market, and multiple venues for music and art. The websites of the nearby towns, by contrast, mostly offer lists of upcoming events and links to town offices or documents, the functional equivalent of visiting a town notice board.

The design for this new iteration of the town website is by Jim Jasper of Jasper Design, a Norfolk-based company. His work over the past two years has been overseen by the EDC and funded by a private nonprofit, the Coalition for Sound Growth, in memory of Vint Lawrence. “We’ve tried to make it a visual reflection of what this beautiful place we live in is,” says Jasper, who points to the photograph-oriented layout and the enlistment of a photo editor, Peter Coffeen, to solicit images from local photographers and supply a steady stream of fresh pictures. The “hero image,” as the main photo on the home page is called, will change regularly. “What we want is to give Norfolk good visual images,” says Coffeen.

The site was intended to serve two separate audiences: outsiders who visit the site in preparation for a potential visit to Norfolk and residents with specific questions about town business. You can use it to get a visual image of the town, learn about hiking trails or exhibitions at the Historical Society and find contact information for local inns. You can also use it to find out which recyclables are accepted at the transfer station, when the Planning and Zoning Commission is meeting or what the animal control officer’s phone number is.

The website’s home page features a dynamic display of upcoming events, linked to a calendar. The plan is to encourage all the many organizations that hold events in Norfolk to post to the site, providing one stop shopping for anyone interested in Norfolk events. The site’s editor and webmaster is Leslie Battis, whose contact information is prominently displayed. 

A new feature that is being offered is a weekly email update of town happenings. The email will be sent out on Thursdays, in time to make plans for the weekend, and will feature a limited number of highlights—maybe five or six items, says Battis, with a link to the calendar for anyone wanting to see more. The service is free. Registration is at https://mailchi.mp/mail.norfolkct.org/events.

“We’re actively soliciting information from people and organizations,” says Jasper. “You try and set up a layout, a grid, that will support information. To see it get used, filled up, is great.” He adds, “Basically, anything that happens here can be represented.”

Photo, top, of webmaster Leslie Battis, left, designer Jim Jasper, center, and photo editor Peter Coffeen, by Wiley Wood.