Community news and engagement

A Little Bit of Stone is a community news website I set up in 2010 and edited for six years. I wrote almost 4,000 articles for the site, built a thriving social media community and ran a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised over £15,000 to fund the site’s community journalism.

The aim of the site was to reflect and celebrate the community where I live. There was so much that the traditional local media just weren’t covering.

The site won a Talk About Local award, was featured by the BBC and took part in a Nesta programme around community engagement. I was also invited to speak at local journalism events about the future of local news.

I left the site in 2016 to focus on my freelance work, but A Little Bit of Stone is going from strength to strength under new owner Jon Cook.

“One of the very best local websites publishing in the UK today”
– Will Perrin, Talk About Local

“A great example of how grassroots reporting is able to support communities”
– community news expert Damian Radcliffe

“Our town is a better place for having A Little Bit of Stone in our midst”
– Richard Stevens, chairman of Stone Food and Drink Festival

“A Little Bit of Stone quickly helped my family to feel part of the community when we moved here.”
– Stone resident Jayne Millar