The Daffodil Festival Video

Forgive me it’s been two weeks since my last blog, may Google have mercy on me. I promise to be a good blogger from now on.

I was in Chincoteague for 10 days shooting videos of the Daffodil Festival, the Decoy Festival and interviews with some very interesting people, it was great fun and a lot of work, there are 15 videos altogether and they will soon be posted to our site, The Chincoteague Outlook.

The Daffodil Festival was nothing but fun. Attended by maybe two thousand people, this two day event really did celebrate spring with music, food, crafters and artists; there were people dancing, children laughing and everyone seeming to have a good time, we did and we plan on coming back next year. To see the video go to http://www.chincoteaguecenter.com/Events/TheDaffodilFestival.asp this was one of my first “professional videos” and I would appreciate any comments or feedback on how it could be improved.

The week following the festival my wife Shelly and my partner Sam Serio cruised the island shooting videos of some local “celebrities” and I found it amazing how truly interesting the folks on Chincoteague are and how happy they are, I found they love Chincoteague and love their work and believe it or not enjoy the tourists and look forward to the summer season. It’s not about money many of these people don’t have to work they do it because they love it.

Over the next couple weeks videos of the locals will be posted, please check back.
http://www.chincoteagueoutlook.com/default.asp

Meet Clara Stevenson

I recently had the pleasure of meeting a local children’s book author, Clara Stevenson. Clara was born here in Woodstown back in the 1920’s. Reading has always been one of her greatest joys and from an early age, she knew she wanted to be a writer.

In 1945, Clara lived and worked in Philadelphia and was enrolled in an evening journalism class at the University of Pennsylvania. World War II had just ended and the class was overflowing with servicemen who were attending under the GI Bill. The professor was a veteran of the First World War and so the wars became the topic of discussion. Clara was young and in a hurry to get on with her life, so she dropped out and started her family. Many years passed and she found herself retired and widowed and back in her beloved hometown of Woodstown. She thought of her dream of long ago and asked herself, “If not now, when?” and then she began to write.

Clara actually “discovered” me from reading a press release about http://www.discoversalemcounty.com/. She contacted me through my website and asked me to design a website to promote her books – 13 in all at the time of this publication. I was delighted to learn that one of her books, “What Do You See When You Look at a Tree?” used Salem County as the setting and mentions the Salem Oak, the Leni-Lenape Indian history , and other places of interest in Salem County.

As part of my research before designing her website, I went to visit Clara. Over a glass of iced tea, we talked about her books and about her cat, Casey, the star of “The Story of KC-The Cat Who Lived in a Shelter.” She gave me several of her books to take with me to read later and I was on my way.

I found Clara’s books to be beautifully illustrated and very good reading. I loved reading about Salem County in “What Do You See When You Look at a Tree?” and the story of how KC became Casey in “The Story of KC-The Cat Who Lived in a Shelter” will make your heart a little bigger.

Clara Stevenson will be signing her book “What Do You See When You Look at a Tree?” at the Woodstown-Pilesgrove Library on Saturday, July 19th from 10am-12pm. For more information, please visit her website, http://www.clarastevenson.com/

Christine DeGraff is a partner at www.Websketching.com and the developer of www.DiscoverSalemCounty.com, a grassroots website designed to help promote Salem County to both tourists and residents alike.

Oakwood Summer Theatre

Just a few weeks ago, I went to see “The Diary of Anne Frank” performed by the Oakwood Summer Theatre at Salem Community College. This was the first of three plays that OST will be producing this summer.

Having been to only a few plays in my lifetime, I do not pretend to be an expert by any means – but I CAN tell you that I was mesmerized by the story and I thought the actors did a great job. Probably most telling of all though – and I am not embarrassed to say it – when the play was over, I left the theater with a lump in my throat and tears slowly rolling down my face.

I have always been saddened thinking about how people suffered during the holocaust, and this play made me want to learn more about it – it made me want to tell people about it – and it made me want to help prevent it from ever happening again. In fact, I was so inspired to do something that I went down to Washington the very next week to visit the Holocaust Museum – unfortunately, they had already run out of passes for the day. My husband and I plan to return in the fall and I will try to go see it then.

Photo: Exterior of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
viewed from Raoul Wallenberg Place (15th St. SW.)

In the meantime, I have been anxiously awaiting the OST’s next play – “The Trial of Goldilocks” – that runs from July 16-18. I am sure this will be a different experience than the first I had, but I hope that it will be an experience none-the-less! I will let you know whether Goldilocks is guilty or innocent of the charge of breaking and entering the Bears’ cottage – or you can just go see for yourself! Finally, OST will conclude their 29th season with musical “Bye Bye Birdie,” a satire that tells the story of a rock and roll singer who is about to be inducted into the army.

By the way, I cannot believe that we have such a great theater company right here in Salem County and that it has been “A Salem County Tradition” since 1980 and I am just now discovering it! That just goes to show that you can live somewhere for years and not really know it – I am learning now that there are things to do right in my own backyard. For more information about OST, visit their website, http://www.oakwoodsummertheatre.com/.

Christine DeGraff is a partner at http://www.websketching.com/ and the developer of http://www.discoversalemcounty.com/, a grassroots website designed to help promote Salem County to both tourists and residents alike.

DiscoverSalemCounty.com

My partner and I have developed DiscoverSalemCounty.com to promote Salem County, NJ. This is a grass roots effort that we have spent over 3 months working on. We have gotten a tremendous response from the community and we are starting to receive notice in the press and among the local art community among others. We have a sweepstakes to give away the artwork of several very talented Salem County artists: (http://www.nj.com/news/sunbeam/local/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1213859426319560.xml&coll=9)

What we are trying to do at this point is to promote the website and ask the members of our community to bookmark it, link to it, and to submit to us relevant news, events for the calendar and photographs of the area. We would REALLY like to have a few local historians look over the history section for accuracy and to ask anyone who has relevant facts and information to please send it to us. We would be happy to give credit for any photos used, etc. What would be WONDERFUL would be if someone could write up some ideas for day trips – I took one the other day and ended up adding the page about “(Just Outside) Salem County”. We are hoping that this website is going to become an invaluable resource to the residents of and visitors to Salem County.

My First Blog

It is so funny that everyone assumes that because I am a website developer I must know everything there is to know about the web and all things technical. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is - I have never used MySpace, I do not have an account on FaceBook and this is my first Blog. Of course, I have HEARD about of all of these "Social Networking" sites and I actually do have a LinkedIn account (and it is a good thing because I got back in touch with my girl Molly who hooked me up with a great account), but I just never felt that I had a use for them or felt comfortable with them before - but that is all about to change! I have decided that it is imperative that I "keep up" with anything that may be of use to me when it comes to promoting websites - thank's to my newest account, Lori Levin of Soulful Studio's. Lori has shown me the light when it comes to blogging and she told me about Google Alerts (where have I been??). Lori is a terrific pet portrait artist (hi Lori - I know you will see this in your alerts!) in Pennsville, NJ. Check back in a few weeks to see her new website (designed and powered by Websketching of course).

Of course, I still can barely use the microwave or DVR player and I had to buy a blackberry with the word "space" on one of the keys in order to master text messaging....