The Tolkien Society has launched its brand new website with a modern feel and clear design. The first redesign of the website for a decade, its vibrant appearance seeks to showcase everything about the Society and encourage as many people as possible to become members. New features of the website include: a blog, frequently-updated news, smials map, members’ area, events listings, and the long-overdue ability to join online.
Last year, on his election to the post of Chairman of the Tolkien Society, Shaun Gunner stated that his key aim for his first year was to see the Society achieve a new website. The new design opens the Society up to more people around the world and represents a 21st Century Society looking forward to reaching out to new audiences.
In his annual report to the Society, Shaun said that the website “represents an open and vibrant Society that is looking forward; it shows the Society at its best as a fellowship of friends; and it focuses on all the things that matter to members and visitors.” Shaun adds, “This is not ‘job done’, though. Several more features are in the works, such as a forum, a photo gallery, a shop and a catalogue of the Society’s archive.”
In the Society’s very first ever blogpost, Shaun also spoke of his enduring fondness for the friendships that are forged in the Society: “I joined the Tolkien Society nearly 10 years ago, and ever since I have found it to be a wonderfully welcoming and engaging community – a true fellowship of friends from across the world who are bound by their love of J.R.R. Tolkien and the works that he created. The warmth of its members continues to gladden me, whilst the lack of any kind of bookish and anti-film snobbery comforts me.”
Full credit for creating the new website goes to Daniel Helen and Emil Johansson with the help of Andrew McMurry. But, the Society would not have had a website at all if it weren’t for Lester Simons in setting up a website in 1996 and Andrew Armstrong for maintaining it for the last 15 years.
