*This is a collaborative post, however, all opinions are my own.

Getting the Local Scoop with ScoopLoop

When my husband and I moved to Bracknell we were pretty clueless about the area. It was a time before social media and when the internet still had to be dialled in via a cable and meant you couldn’t make any phone calls at the same time. Wow that made me feel old! But even now, having lived in the area for 15 years there is still so much I find I want to find out about my local area.

As a parent I want to find out about local schools, things to do in the school holiday and great clubs my children can go to. As a person who is moving house soon I am currently hunting for removal companies, and I want personal recommendations based on people’s experiences. I want to learn about local events from road works to days out, to great places to eat.

We no longer receive a local newspaper, at first I thought it was because the delivery person was frightened of our dog, but it would seem that unfortunately it is no longer available. Which means that the internet is now the source of all of this important information, particularly for parents.

Introducing ScoopLoop

ScoopLoop is a community centred website, aimed at helping you get the ‘scoop’ in your local area. A website created by a small group of South West London locals who have spent the last 2 years building ScoopLoop with their own funds. Their aim is to  help bring together people who are currently looking for and sharing important local information online that is otherwise not easy to tap in to.

Scoop Loop is about getting to know people in your community. It is a social site all about the area that you live in.

It has 10 categories that you can post in:

• General
• Classified
• Looking For
• Neighbourhood Watch
• Mums and Dads
• Arts and Craft
• Lost and Found
• Free Stuff
• Food and Drink
• Travel

You can post in each of these groups, or of course search for things that you are looking to find out about. If you are an event creator you can create your own event and if you are local business you can also create your own page.

The posts are then shared into local groups and shared with people who live in your area only. You also then receive a daily email about your local area, which also includes personal notifications too.

My Early Thoughts

At first I was a little skeptical of the website, there are local groups on Facebook after all. But I am also open to new ideas and opportunities. I have only been using ScoopLoop for a few days. The website is still in its infancy and at the moment it is quite a quiet space. But on the first day I signed up I asked for local recommendations on removal companies and within a short space of time I had a personal reply

The owners are really refreshingly open to ideas and feedback, which means right now there is the chance for you to be part of making the website what you really want it to be to help you connect.

Busy modern life means that we don’t always have time to connect with our neighbours as we might want to. Yet the saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ still holds true. A way to connect with your village in a connected world can only surely be a good thing?

Join Us

A group of local Mums and I will be testing and using ScoopLoop over the next few weeks to see what we think and reporting back to you. Why don’t you join us on the site, join in the conversation and come back and let us know what you think too?