Friday, December 9, 2011

Social Media Issues, Segment One

We are launching a new series on social media issues and the first segment is being posted here.

Crany Creek Christmas Lights A Bust This Year As Is Franktronics Christmas Light Show

We recently learned that there will be no grand lighting displays this year at the Joyce residence on Crany Creek. The Joyce family sent a letter to the Gloucester Mathews Gazette Journal back in November stating that due to health issues, they were not going to set up the lights. They expect to set up the lights again next year but this year is a bust. We still have a few videos from last year's event that we have not posted in here, so we will get them up soon for everyone.

Also, Franktronics will not be putting on the Christmas lights show at the campgrounds this year either. Instead Franktronics is only doing a small display outside of their retail location on route 17. Either way, their lights make a very strong showing on 17. They are hard to miss. Gloucester Main Street is a major pain in the you know what with all that construction so visiting the Christmas tree at the circle is very difficult.

Also with the weather having been as warm as it is, few people have caught the Christmas spirit. With the drop in the above circles of what many people looked forward to this time of year, it's going to be a tougher season here. I used to be amazed at all the people who did NOT put up Christmas lights in the past. This year I am amazed at all the people that have put up lights. We put up ours as both my wife and I come from families that have always done so. It's just part of our tradition. We just scaled down how much we do now.

While I have you reading, check out the Gloucester Mathews Gazette Journal web site. Updated and upgraded and looking very nice. More professional with a lot more information. Well done.
http://www.gazettejournal.net

Bay Transit Web Site And Information

If you have been looking for Bay Transit's web site, at the present time they do not have one. Edited in at the last minute, they now have one, http://www.baytransit.org/ So we are going to post here all the information we can to help everyone understand the service Bay Transit offers. Bay Transit does not just serve Gloucester County, it also serves West Point, Middlesex, Lancaster counties as well as Tappahanock. Now it does not serve Richmond county as they have their own service for Warsaw and surrounding areas.

Times; Bay Transit serves each community from 6:00 AM until 6:00 PM Monday through Friday. Sorry, no weekend runs. Holidays are also not serviced.

Cost is $1.00 per person per one way trip. Each time you get off and then get on again represents a trip. Some transfers from one bus to another are possible without having to pay between the two buses, however, if you are traveling from one county to another, then you will have to pay between each county bus you ride. In other words, if you are traveling from Gloucester to Middlesex or West Point, you have to take multiple buses to be able to get around. Each county bus will cost you a fee.

How to lower your cost per ride. Bay Transit sells tickets that allow you to ride for 80 cents per ride instead of $1.00 per ride. You can buy books of 10 tickets for $8.00. You can buy them when you get on a bus or when you get off a bus or in advance at one of their offices.

The service is available to everyone in each of these counties. You do not need to qualify by being elderly, disabled or poor. You qualify by wanting to use the service. There are plenty of reasons why you might need to use it. Car broke down and it is in the service station for repairs? Have a lot to do and do not want to wait at the service center all day? If you know in advance that your car will be down all day, you can arrange to be picked up at the service center where your car is and then go to wherever it is you need to go to. When you are done, you can get picked up and delivered back to the service station. There are a lot of reasons you might find why you could use the service.

Scheduling to be picked up. Bay Transit requires that you call at least 24 hours in advance for service. What to expect. It's not cut and dry here. Just because you want to be picked up at say 9:00 AM does not mean that they can actually have someone pick you up at exactly 9:00 AM. They will do their best to try and have someone pick you up at 9:00 AM but keep in mind, this is a bus service handling the entire county, not a taxi service. Now let's say that they actually schedule your pickup for 9:00 AM, they also have a 15 minute window in which to do this. What that means, the bus could be there at 8:45 to get you or at 9:15 to get you. It's 15 minutes from either side of your scheduled time.

Now let's go a bit further. If you have to be somewhere at 9:30 AM, you live in Gloucester Point and are heading to the Court House area, what normally takes you 20 minutes to drive, could take over an hour on the bus. The reason is very simple, you are not the only one on the bus. The driver has other pickups and drop offs along the way. It could take as long as one and a half hours to get to your destination because of all the other passenger's.

It's not a first on first off service. You have to wait until you get to your destination. People with special medical needs are going to take a priority as well. So if you are going a fair distance and need to be there at 9:30 AM, you may have to be ready to leave at 7:00 AM to be there. The person who schedules your pickup will let you know when they can pick you up in order to get you to your destination by your scheduled time. It's still not a guarantee that they will be able to do so once you get on the bus. On the other side of the coin, it sure beats walking.

So please keep in mind, if you need the service, you need to keep these factors in mind. There are no scheduled bus routes or pickup points. They pick you up at your house, business or wherever you specify as long as the bus is able to get there. Each county served is huge and each county has a lot of dirt back roads that are very hard to travel and Bay Transit travels these roads every day. Delays happen all the time trying to pick people up and drop people off on these back roads. If you have made arrangements to be picked up and then get a ride, please cancel your pickup. It helps prevent delays for others. If you do not cancel, the bus driver still shows up at that destination delaying everyone else on the bus and the driver spends valuable time trying to ensure your pickup. This happens every day and it's very hard on the entire community that depends on this service.

Bay Transit performs the impossible every day running a bus service similar to a cab service. The teams in each county work very hard at providing the best service they can. Though not perfect, it can't be made perfect considering the circumstances they work in.

Would Bay Transit benefit by having a web site? We can justify just about any business having a web site but in this case, I would say not. Bay Transit would benefit from increasing or presenting a strong social media presence on the web, but a web site in their case could actually harm them. The reason is simple, if you see a web site for them, you are going to want to schedule a pickup or multiple pickups on the site. In this business, the scheduling staff already performs the impossible on a daily basis, trying to work in scheduling through a web site on top of this would prove to be a nightmare that could end up closing down the service as integrating the two would be beyond reasonable costs and extra unjustifiable expenses.

A good and strong social media presence however would communicate the difficulties and triumphs this company has. Bay Transit is served better by sites such as this presenting their business to you than to try and do it themselves. Last minute edit, as predicted, you can not schedule a pickup on that site. We strongly recommend the service should you need transportation and support Bay Transit for the impossible work they perform each day.

To Schedule Pick ups call - 804-693-6977

This is the central phone number for all areas served by Bay Transit

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Judy Pancoast At Crany Creek, Live - 2010 Christmas Special Guest Neal Steele


From our archives, Judy Pancoast live at Crany Creek during the Christmas season of 2010. We just published this video a couple of months ago. It was lost in our huge files database. She really did an incredibel job and was a lot of fun to be around. A wonderful personality with great talent to boot. Now as you get towards the end of the video you will actually hear Judy say that the performance of her and Neal Steele doing the Travolta arms will end up on You Tube. How little did she know that she was so right.

Gloucester VA Christmas Parade






Here is last year's Christmas Parade in it's entirety. At the time we had limitations on how long the videos were that we posted. Enjoy.

Crany Creek Christmas Lights


Tis that time of year again and we know Dan and his family have put out the lights. If you have not made the trip to see his house yet, here is the preview and you can map out the exact location on the Google map on this site if you would like.

Scrooge - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol


Well we are fully into the Christmas season now so it's time we begin posting our Christmas videos and we have just finished posting a number of Christmas music for free downloads all over the site. We have posted 3 full MP3 albums and a bonus MP3 song. All of it is 100% free and 100% legal. We break no laws here and give you a license with each album or song downloaded. We still have Popeye up for a short while longer but will soon replace that with a Christmas video. We will be posting more Christmas Videos very soon here.