The Dickeyville Website

History, Acknowledgements, and How to Contribute Content

** Dickeyvillians - Are you considering contributing contents to the website?
Please scroll further below to find details about best ways to do this.

Ongoing Website Management

The Dickeyville.org website has been managed by a web editor, Sheridan Jones McCrae, since 2015.  

  • Content on this site is contributed by many Dickeyville residents who generously share their time, writing talents and images by contributing to the Village News Blog, Visual Galleries, Events Calendar and Residents’ Resources.

    • Please note – this is not a full-time or paid role, so we rely on support from village residents via regular contributions of written materials or visual files.

    • Scroll further below to learn best ways to contribute content to this news blog, events calendar, photo galleries etc,

Website History

In 2015, Sheridan Jones McCrae was commissioned by the Dickeyville Community Association to re-establish the village website. The extensive process involved significant input from fellow residents including interviews, online surveys and curation of images and documentation. Before 2015, previous versions were managed by residents, Mike Blair and John Scott. In 2024, the website was moved from Wordpress to Squarespace and redesigned.

Sheridan Jones McCrae - A quintessential global wanderer, this Aussie has lived on 5 continents, specialized in multiple fields, and finally put down roots in the village in 2013 with Scottish husband, David. These days she is a visual artist and communications strategist who enjoys sharing information about public health and protecting natural environments through use of photography, video, writing and design. Sheridan creates glass art in her studio, loves permaculture gardening, blue waters, mountain-biking, and hiking with her dog, Finn on Baltimore’s nearby trails.  

Website Design + Logo

Color palette

The website color palette of white, grey, orange, and green reflects the village homes, field-stone walls, brick pathways, and surrounding forests.

Logo

The logo featured on the website was created by Sheridan Jones McCrae based on significant creative contribution from Sheryl Schmidt. Dickeyville thanks previous resident Sheryl Schmidt, who generously contributed her artistic representation of the village township that is a focal point in the Dickeyville logo.  The township scene also featured on previous year July 4th parade t-shirts and coffee mugs given to new residents

Sheryl Schmidt is a professional oil painter with over 20 years of experience in producing, selling, and teaching art. She has a BFA Degree in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. She is also a certified color consultant, stages at homes with her work, and accepts commissions. Sheryl has both instructed in college classrooms and taught privately to adults, young adults, and children. She has a true passion for art and painting the landscape. Most of her inspiration comes from the outside and the people she sees there. Sheryl has relocated to the East Coast, her true home, where she paints, teaches, learns, travels, and walks the beach everyday with loved ones.  

How to Contribute to the Website

Add your own spin on celebrating the unique and cherished lives we get to lead in Dickeyville

We encourage neighbors to share their account of life in the village and/or their knowledge about topics likely to be of interest to residents. Below are various opportunities to share your experiences:

1. Topic article on the Village Blog 

Write a post you think would be of interest to villagers. Potential ideas: gardening suggestions, historic home stories, wildlife sightings, celebrating residents’ achievements, favorite local museum outings, an in-depth look into your hobby or area of expertise such as hiking trails in Baltimore or Gywnns Fall watershed improvement efforts. 

Formatting Suggestions for Written Posts

  • Basic word processing software to write your post (e.g. Microsoft word). 

  • Length: suggested 300 -500 words for a standard post, or 1000 - 1500 words for a deeper dive into a nuanced topic.

    • If you have a topic that you would like to write more than 1500 words, talk with the web editor about options, such as breaking it into two separate blog posts.

  • Posts will be reviewed by the Web Editor for simple proofreading and content appropriateness. Minor typos will just be fixed before posts go live, or for you’ll be contacted for more substantial issues. 

  • At least one image is highly encouraged to accompany each written post. 

  • Keep in mind the website's purpose is to showcase Dickeyville in a positive light; so we want to reflect the neighborhood’s civility and inclusivity to ensure that people with differing views feel welcome. Please keep controversial personal opinions, (especially political and religious), out of your posts.

2. Event summary on the Village Blog 

Recap any village event, ideally within a week after the event. Examples include village lectures, the annual bonfire, July 4th events, a stream or road clean up session, or ladies night. 

  • Suggested length: 100-300 words. Accompanying images are encouraged if available.

 3. Submitting Visual Materials (Photos + Videos):

Photographs

We are grateful to receive high quality images created by anyone in the village – amateur, aspiring or professional photographers.

  • Images on the Dickeyville website will be credited to their source/photographer wherever possible. 

  • To avoid slow website performance, we limit the amount and size of images displayed. Galleries are curated from the best quality images submitted. 

Considerations before submitting your photo(s):

  • Photo file size should be 250 - 750KB to be useable on the website.

  • Please don’t sent large image files directly from your camera (these are usually too big at 1MB+). Compress photos from your phone or digital camera via several options: 

    • By emailing pictures as attachment to yourself + selecting appropriate size. Or by using the Compress feature on your computer. Or a free online compression service (google for multiple options)

    • If above methods don’t help, email the Web Editor for guidance.

  • Be selective – send only your best images. Please don’t send in photos without sharp focus or incorrect lighting exposure (e.g. too dark or red eyes) 

  • Provide details about your photo so we can include an accurate caption.

    • Brief description of image + month + year + name of photographer. For example: Villagers enjoy mingling at the Ice-cream Social Oct 2015. Photo by Joe Smith 

Photo Story

A photo story is a great way to have your images featured on the village blog as a mini gallery. This is a collection of 5-10 images that visually tell a cohesive story about an issue or an event. Include captions with each image to supplement the storyline.

Videos

Videos are tricky to host on the village website (due to file size limits). URL links to video you've already uploaded, for example to YouTube or Vimeo, are easier to manage. Please contact the Web Editor for best options to have a video published.

 4. Village Events Calendar

To add an event to the calendar, please include the following:

  • Events details to provide: Event Title, event date, event start time + finish time.  Name of key contact person for any questions.

  • Optional information to supply: Event website, email address. Relevant image file, which should be between 50-500kb. If not supplied, a generic thumbnail image will be used. 

Submit your event information at least one week before you need it to appear on the website event calendar.

Please note: We publish only events to be held in the village, and/or nearby events likely to be attended by significant numbers of village residents. This village calendar is not intended to show Baltimore-wide events.

How to Submit Contents for the Website

Ways to submit your information for publication on the Dickeyville website:

  • Use the Website Contact Form, located on the private Residents Retreat page (access gained by using password provided to village residents in the Directory). This location is to avoid the hundreds of previously unsolicited submissions received from businesses wanting to advertise their services.

  • Email the Web Editor directly (Sheridan’s email address is in the Village Directory).

  • We do not accept solicitations for commercial services or requests to be featured on village news blog.

Please make sure you've reviewed suggestions above or your contents may not get published.