Dear Stavanger Expats,
The website is now 2 years old! We would like to thank you for your readership, comments, questions and feedback. We still remember the day when the four of us sat together at a cafe and came up with the idea for this website. We worked on it for a month before publishing the site and it has just been growing with articles, information and viewers ever since. Though 2 of our 4 founders had to move away, we (Cynthia(left) and Fonda) are here to stay. We have recruited a group of contributors who are helping us with articles, answering questions on the forums, and assisting at events.
When we first began the site we saw amazing growth in the first year in readership and in event attendance. We realized that it was not just us looking for information on living in Norway, many others had joined us. In our first year we had over 16,000 individuals read our site. This year we are honored to tell you that over 48,000 individuals viewed the site averaging 25,000 page views per month. In 2010, according to the ssb.no, there were 38,500 expats (immigrants and emigrants) in Rogaland.
As you can see, we have revamped the look of our site to mark our 2nd birthday. We hope that you will find it easier to find information and to get in touch with others. We encourage you to take advantage of the forum to ask questions and meet fellow expats. We still meet every Wednesday morning for coffee and the last Thursday of every month for pub night. This year in addition to Coffee Mornings and the Pub Night we have had a Brewery tour at Lervig, a city tour and several weekend brunches. We have a Facebook page with over 600 members that offers fast group responses to your questions. Another new feature we have added to the site is a FAQ page – as we find that a lot of the same questions get asked repeatedly.
Contrary to what many people assume, all participation of the website is completely voluntary. Our contributors and ourselves get no remuneration for the work we do on the site. We have been advised by some viewers to charge a membership fee before information on the site can be accessed; however, we have decided not to do that. Instead, we have decided to have a donation page where it is up to you if you wish to contribute to the site you can. The donations collected will go to the maintenance and related cost of the website.
Once again, we would like to thank you for reading and participating in Stavanger Expats events. We are thrilled to get to meet new expats every week. We hope that through the site your move to Norway was made easier and that your daily life is simpler.
Cynthia & Fonda
The Editors
What others had to say:
StavangerExpats.com has been a fantastic resource for me since I arrived in Stavanger. I used it to find out everything I needed to know before I arrived, went to the coffee morning on my first week here and have found many other sources of great information from it since.
I’ve continued to go coffee mornings and evening meet ups, and have found them to be the best place to find friends and meet people in a similar situation to me. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the site and the events to any expat who is trying to get involved in life here in Stavanger.
I would like to thank Stavanger Expats for interviewing me for my business when it was first started. I had many clients contact me after the interview was published and my clientèle doubled.. Keep up the good work!
I attended the Expat Meet Up at Martinique on my 3rd day in Stavanger and managed to find a couple of people from my home country. It helped me to settle in Stavanger easier. Now I try to attend the events whenever I can. Thank you!
Stavanger Expats has been an amazing resource in helping me adjust to life in Norway. Not only has the site answered so many of my questions before and after moving to Norway, but I have also been able to make some amazing friends through the weekly coffee mornings and the expat drink nights.
A big thank you to Fonda and Cynthia for all their time and efforts!
I moved to Stavanger when I was 35 weeks pregnant and found the site to be extremely helpful, especially the information on how to have a baby in Norway. I now have a 5 month old baby girl and am still using the facebook page for both Stavanger Expats and the Stavanger International Moms’ group.
Pub Night
Coffee Mornings
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About Fonda LaShay
Fonda is an American who has been living in Stavanger since July of 2008 with her Norwegian samboer. She enjoys tea, visiting with friends, music, taking photos and traveling. She loves the rain, but really dislikes when her feet get wet - this is always challenging since it rains so often in Stavanger. Follow Fonda LaShay on Google+ Fonda is a design blogger - blogging about design, architecture, photography, and music. Check out her blog!
1 comment
Lani Cantor
Nov 2, 2011
Happy Birthday Stavanger Expats! and thank you so much for all the hard work you have both put into this site!