Seasons Greetings to The Hague OnLine Community from Billy & Renee

Wow, another year is almost at an end. Billy and Renee have very much enjoyed keeping you up to date each week with news, events and information in English throughout the year. It’s also been an absolute pleasure to meet up with many members of our community in person.

Renee, Tetyana (Volunteer The Hague), Billy, & Jay (Female Ventures) at the Volunteer The Hague Mix & Match last month.

20 years of history

Did you know that this year, 2024, marks 20 years of TheHagueOnLine history? Billy founded the website way back in 2004.   Renee joined the team briefly then, but then moved (back ) to Australia.  In 2012 she moved back to The Hague and rejoined the THOL team not long afterwards as editor – and has been here ever since! Many changes have happened during that time, and there are more to come.  Here’s a sneak peak of what is happening in 2025….

New enewsletter  

Our current weekly newsletter comes to you via MailChimp.  We will be changing to a new system in early 2025. We will export our current database, so hopefully all you will notice in your inbox weekly on a Thursday is a new, improved layout. Our next edition will be sent on Thursday 9 January 2025.  So if you don’t receive this, please check your junk mail, and contact us if you still don’t find it.

Updated website

A huge thanks to Lemonberry for all their support with building and maintaining our website.  However with 20 years of history, even with some refreshes during that time, it’s “creaking”. A overall redesign plan for the website is in progress and will happen gradually in the coming months. For example, our events calendar will change format and most pages will have a refresh in layout. We are also working on archiving much of the content from the last 20 years.  Some older articles will still available but this will most likely all be taken offline first and just a few added back.  So if you have any favourite articles, make sure you take a copy now. Please do also bear with us in the coming months while we work on this.  Suggestions and contributions also most welcome!

Change of ownership

Those of you who know Billy personally know he loves to travel, and has been dreaming of (semi) retirement….so we have agreed that in 2025, alongside remaining as editor, Renee will also become the new owner of THOL.  Billy is away for a few months, but when he returns to The Hague will still remain involved as founder and Ambassador.  More details on this early next year.

Community Survey We are consistently keen to hear the input from our community.  Could you please take just a few minutes to complete this survey if you haven’t already? Your information is anonymous and all questions are optional. https://forms.gle/ZGQTGoNjg2N8QpNg9 If you’d like to give specific direct feedback or ask questions, please email us on editor@thehagueonline.com Wishing you a wonderful festive season and we look forward to (re)connecting in 2025! Renee & Billy