End of year special 2022
Last month, I announced there would be a special edition of the liftingstones.org newsletter. This is it: the liftingstones.org year in review!
I also said that I wouldn't be publishing a new article. I was wrong. Jamie Gorrian has written his account of rediscovering the lost Monachyle Stone! It's such a fantastic recount of his story that I couldn't wait to publish it. And it's perfect for some Christmas reading!
Here's your list of topics for this month. Feel free to jump around to the ones that interest you most:
- The Monachyle Stone - guest article by Jamie Gorrian
- 2022 review
- Site redesign and rebuild
- Newsletter
- Articles
- Growth
- The bad
- Plans for 2023
The Monachyle Stone - guest article by Jamie Gorrian
You've probably seen Jamie Gorrian on Instagram. He lifts historic Scottish stones almost weekly and hosts his own stonelifting competitions: the McGreggor Stonelifting Games and Scotland's Strongest Stonelifter.
Back in November, I asked a few people to read early drafts of my Stonelifting Etiquette article. Jamie was one of those people. I knew that if I missed anything, he wouldn't be afraid of letting me know because he's one of the most passionate historic stone preservationists I know.
After publishing the etiquette article, Jamie asked whether I'd be interested in publishing an article about the Monachyle stone. Of course I would! But a lot of work goes into writing and publishing articles for liftingstones.org, so it probably wouldn't be for a while.
Even if I publish one article per month, I already have enough article ideas in the pipeline to fill the entirety of 2023... And 2024.
But I had misunderstood. He wanted to write about the stone himself. And who wouldn't want to publish the personal account of rediscovering a historic stone from one of the top stonelifters in the world?!
So here it is: Jamie's story of rediscovering the lost Monachyle stone! This is liftingstones.org's very first guest article, so it's pretty exciting. If you enjoy it, let Jamie know!
2022 review
In short, 2022 has been the biggest year yet for liftingstones.org!
Towards the end of 2021, I was disappointed that I had been neglecting the project. I wanted to revive it and make it better than ever. So during some downtime over Christmas 2021, I created a roadmap planning out what I wanted to do. There were a few big plans:
- A compete redesign
- An email newsletter
- Monthly articles
I was so excited by the ideas that I immediately started working on the redesign.
Site redesign and rebuild
When I first created liftingstones.org, the design was... not good. The colours didn't work well together, the layout was awkward, and writing articles was painful. It was so bad that I avoided publishing any articles during the entirety of 2021! All of these issues are because I created the original site pretty quickly, without really thinking about the design.
In fact, the first site was originally just a map of stones - no articles at all! The articles only came later, so it's no surprise the original article layout and design got de-prioritized.
Luckily, one of the best features of the liftingstones.org website is that it's handmade - I built it myself. Effectively, that means that I'm able to control everything. I can tweak the article styling, change the layout, and add tools like the Dinnie weight calculator pretty quickly. I'm not limited by the whims of a website building tool.
For about two weeks over the 2021 Christmas period, I built a brand new site from the ground up. Readability of articles was a huge priority, so I removed clutter, fixed the colours, and added dark mode. Articles are now much easier to create and edit thanks to some changes behind-the-scenes too. Of course, all of the changes carry over to the rest of the site: the map's popups are nicely styled, and the articles list is far better on mobile devices (plus a tonne of other things).
By January 2nd, the complete rebuild was live! The first step of the roadmap complete just one day into the year.
Throughout 2022, I made a lot of smaller quality-of-life features to the site - like the paginated list of articles that makes it easier to scroll through all of the posts. But my main focus has been on research, writing, and publishing.
Newsletter
Alongside the redesigned site, I added a newsletter sign-up box. But the actual content of the newsletter was still mostly undecided. Just announcing new articles would be fine, but that didn't seem like the most interesting thing to do with it. I want people to get excited when they open their inbox and find an email from me!
So I decided write and publish news from the stonelifting world too. Most of the interesting things that happen are posted on Instagram and other social media. And I know that it's hard to keep up with sometimes. So I thought 'why not compile it into a monthly newsletter?'. As a bonus, readers get notified about new articles on liftingstones.org before anyone else.
This little newsletter has evolved over the year too. The format changed from a single long-form letter to having multiple sections. With announcements and recaps of stonelifting events. As well as irregular topics like showcasing lifts, tours, and stonelifting at events like the Arnolds UK.
In January, the newsletter went out to just 27 people. Throughout the year, the number of subscribers has grown consistently. And now the newsletter is sent to hundreds of stonelifting enthusiasts - including some very well-known people in the community.
If you have any suggestions for what you want to see in the newsletter in 2023, I'd love your feedback!
Articles
During 2022 I published a total of twelve articles - hitting my goal of one article per month (although strictly speaking, January had two articles, February three, and others zero!). Without Jamie's guest article this month, the goal wouldn't have been hit at all. There are now thirty-three total articles on the site!
If you happened to miss any of 2022's articles, here they are in order:
- Klypelyftsteinen — Pinch lift stones
- Garreg Orchest
- Atlas Stones
- Castle Stones
- Odd Haugen's Tombstone
- The Replica Dinnie Stones
- The Legend Stones
- Polynesian Stonelifting
- The Nicol Walking Stones
- The Giant's Stone
- Stonelifting Etiquette
- Monachyle Stone
It's extremely difficult to pick a favourite article from 2022, but I might have to give it to Polynesian Stonelifting. Partly because I had been researching it for a while and because stonelifting in Polynesia was unknown to even well-versed stonelifters. Highlighting stonelifting from across the globe is why I started the site in the first place.
Having said that, Stonelifting Etiquette is probably the most important article I've published. Not just this year, but ever. So it deserves an extra special shout-out.
Growth
This year has been a record-breaking one for liftingstones.org, thanks to an incredible surge in traffic. We've seen more than double the number of visitors compared to last year, and global reach has exploded, with people from over 100 countries visiting throughout the year! Stonelifting is truly global!
Ohio's Arnold Sports Festival in March brought the biggest spike in visitors thanks to Odd Haugen's Tombstone at the Strongman Classic, Chloe Brennan's insane lift of the Replica Dinnie Stones, and Kevin Faires' record-breaking walk with the Replica Dinnie Stones. So many people were searching for info about the stones used over that weekend - it was fantastic!
The bad
It's great to talk about all of the great things that have happened this year. But I find it helpful to mention the things that didn't go quite as well.
The biggest failure this year was the 'Training' page. My goal was to create some guides to help people start stonelifting - I even created the page so that I would have more incentive to build-out my vision. Sadly, I just never managed to execute on it. I was too focused on my articles and newsletter. It will happen. There's just no date on it yet.
I would love to be more active on Instagram too, to share cool pictures, to see more people lifting, and to talk to more people in the community. Sadly, Instagram is just a lot work. Even writing Instagram-sized articles for stones takes a lot of time that I don't have right now.
Ultimately, the biggest contributor to all these 'failures' was lack of time. Writing and publishing an article and a newsletter every month was more work than I originally anticipated. And that knowledge is going to heavily influence how I take-on 2023.
Plans for 2023
Having said all that about 2022, it's even more obvious that liftingstones.org has enormous shoes to fill in the upcoming year.
Here are my current plans:
- Fewer articles
- Less frequent newsletters
- Traveling for stonelifting!
- Some secret projects
Publishing fewer articles and newletters speaks for itself. I've already pointed out how much time they take to create, so freeing up that time will allow me to focus on the other goals I have for liftingstones.org. But don't worry, there will still be new content throughout 2023!
Then, for the first time in a while, I've made plans to visit some stones next year! I'll be meeting up with people, researching, and lifting! I might even write about some of it. Excited is an understatement!
The time saved from doing less writing is going to spent on some 'secret projects'. Sorry for being vague about them - I have a few different ideas (big and small) that I need to experiment with. And I don't want to announce anything that doesn't end up materializing. Luckily, if they do, you'll be the first to know!
Thank you!
To every single one of you reading this newsletter - whether you subscribed back in January, or just last week - I want to sincerely thank you. 2022 has been a fun year to work on liftingstones.org, and there's a good chance I wouldn't be nearly as motivated if it weren't for you. It's especially true for those of you who have reached out to say how much you enjoy the articles and newsletters. Thanks for your support!
I feel like I spoke a lot about myself in this newsletter. Ultimately, liftingstones.org and I are inseparable - this is my passion project.
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