The People's Times
The People's Times is an innovative, purpose-built online space for New Zealanders, with a host of features designed
especially for our grassroots community groups, clubs and societies and their members. It harnesses the social networking
power of 'Web 2.0' technologies to connect individuals and organisations, and it's completely free to use.
The People's Times offers three core services:
The People's Times
The People’s Times is New Zealand’s first dedicated ‘community journalism’ platform. Community journalism, also known
as ‘citizen’ or ‘participatory’ journalism, is about enabling everyone to play an active role in the process of
gathering, reporting, and disseminating news and information for, about and beyond their communities.
We want to give Kiwis and grassroots groups a space to read and write about themselves, their communities and the big
issues of the day, and to pool great material from all over the internet.
In other words – your news is our news!
The People’s Times features a hand-picked selection of community-oriented stories from New Zealand and the rest of
the world, but our priority is promoting content produced by and for local people – hence the ‘People’s Times’.
Through the People’s Times, individuals and communities can submit their own articles and photos, and link to
interesting articles, videos and podcasts from other websites that they’d like to share. Readers can also comment on
any article on the site.
People's Communities
People’s Communities is designed to enable not-for-profit groups in New Zealand to get online for FREE.
Whether you’re a sports club, residents’ association, cultural society, hobby group, community organisation or any
other kind of group... and whether you have five members or fifty... you’re welcome to join us!
On People’s Communities, your group gets your own simple, ad-free 'community hub' inside the main site, with its own
unique URL (web address). From here, community members can keep in touch, share news and views and organise the
group’s activities. Your homepage has easy-to-use tools like discussion forums, blogs and photo galleries already
built in, plus secure file storage for your community paperwork.
Plus, anyone can search People's Communities to find out about groups and clubs in their area. They can find
out more information, contact you and join your group through your homepage.
You can see a sample community homepage or search our database by clicking the 'Communities' tab at the top of any
People's Times page.
The People's Noticeboard
The People's Noticeboard is a simple, searchable online noticeboard with a community focus.
Individuals and registered People's Times communities can browse, search, post and respond to free notices across a
range of community-oriented categories, 24 hours a day.
Being a NZ-wide service the People's Noticeboard is perfect for national notices, but it works just as well for very
local notices - events, meetings, cancellations, sports results, competitions, lost and found - think of it as your
virtual 'local dairy window'. You can attach files and photos to your listings too.
You can also reach the People's Noticeboard at its own easy-to-remember web address,
www.noticeboard.org.nz.
Tell us what you think
Is there something you think we’re missing on the People’s Times, or think we could do better? We’re always keen to hear
about your experiences of using the site, and any ideas you might have to improve it. You can find a link to our 'Contact
us' form at the bottom of every People's Times page.
Who we are
The People's Times is a project of the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand and e-learning specialists Flexible Learning Network. It was developed in 2008/9 with seed funding from
the New Zealand (Labour) government's Community
Partnership Fund.
Unlocking the potential of communities in a digital age
The intent of the Community Partnership Fund is to focus on initiatives that will improve people's capability and skills
to use information and communication technology (ICT) and develop digital content.
ICT can be used to bring communities closer together, to build the capacity of individuals and groups, extend existing
services to isolated communities or to those excluded from participating fully, and increase participation in the
democratic process.
From the Government’s Digital Strategy – 'Creating Our Digital Future'
This encapsulates the goals of the People's Times.
