“Wintergreen is complicated,” Jay Roberts, the executive director of the Wintergreen Property Owners Association, says when starting to explain his new website designed to bring together everything everyone wants to know about the popular resort community in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.
“There is a lot of great information online about Wintergreen and the surrounding area,” Roberts notes. “Nelson County, for example, has done an outstanding job creating and maintaining an events calendar. Here at Wintergreen the resort, our nature foundation, the all-volunteer sporting club, Wintergreen Adaptive Sports, and others have active, detailed websites and social media campaigns.
“Aggregating all of this into one useful website was the goal. It wasn’t easy, but the result has turned out not only to be very useful, but it also tells a powerful and compelling story that celebrates this very special place,” Roberts says.
The new WPOA website is targeting different interests by using unique domain names:
OurWintergreen.com goes to a page that offers a guide to all the fun to be had at Wintergreen, plus basic information such as where to take your trash and “Bear Smart” facts, as well as links to local calendars of events.
An in-depth guide to all of the hiking trails in and around Wintergreen can be found on the website at HikeWinergreen.org.
The “real” homepage of the website is wtgpoa.org, with a link to news and updates, and another link to a page outlining WPOA’s services, operations, and administration.
“We’ve also put in a tremendous amount of additional information for our property owners and guests online,” says Roberts. “For example, there are interactive maps and complete details on WPOA’s pools and parks, a complete guide to our Tuckahoe Clubhouse, and a page with maps and useful links on fishing. Wintergreen covenants, along with the guidelines developed over the years, are now searchable. And, while WPOA isn’t responsible for utilities, we now have a page with information telling our members who to call.”
The website published this month is an addition to WPOA’s fire and rescue website (at wtgfireresq.org) and the website of its police department (at WintergreenPolice.org), both of which have been reworked recently.
“We applaud these efforts to create a one-stop information portal for Wintergreen residents and visitors,” notes Maureen Kelley, Nelson County director of economic development and tourism. “The website harnesses the power of so many agencies and services, with world-class features and a user-friendly interface. A job well done.”
The base of WPOA’s new website was created by Charles Batchelor, a retired journalist turned marketing communications professional who lives at Wintergreen full-time. He launched OurWintergreen.com five years ago as a proof-of-concept.
The merger of WPOA’s website with Batchelor’s project started more than a year ago.
“It’s said if it’s done right, you shouldn’t have to explain a website. There is some truth to that,” says Batchelor. “Explaining Wintergreen, however, was a challenge. One primary goal was to build this Wintergreen website so that Google and other search engines found it useful. That was a key measure in tweaking it over the last five years. It’s working well.”
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