Hero of the Pirate Party: Gavin Sibley

The heart of PPUK lies in its volunteers.  They strive to make the party what it is.  From time to time, we would like to say a hearty 'thanks', give a firm pat on the back, and sing a sea shanty to honour one of our crewmates.  One problem is that we're sailing in cyberspace and it isn't that easy to give pats on the back and sing a sea shanty whilst on the internet (though I'm sure some of you will try now).  One thing we can do is say thanks.  To show our appreciation, we have decided to introduce the entirely carbon-free, low-cal honour of 'Hero of the Pirate Party', which will be awarded to those pirate volunteers who have really set an example for the rest of us.

In what we hope will become a long and proud tradition, we name Gavin Sibley as the first Hero of the Pirate Party.  Hoorah!  Gavin has been working extraordinary hours over the last month, leading the team that has developed and deployed our website.  That includes integrating the functionality to take membership details and donations, delivering a whole new look and feel, and making the site so robust that she continues to sail calmly whilst being bombarded by traffic.  In less than a week, the site has had over 30,000 visitors, served over 200,000 page views and taken over 800,000 hits.  How about that for a sturdy ship!?!

Andrew Robinson, Party Leader, said:

"We're all really grateful to Gavin and his team, who have done such a tremendous job in pulling the website together.  We were understandably worried that something like Slashdot or a Stephen Fry tweet would cause a flood of traffic and knock the site over.  In the end we got both, one after the other, but the site stayed up regardless.  Without the hard work of Gavin and his helpers, the party could not have achieved so much so quickly.  All pirates owe Gavin a debt of gratitude."

Three cheers for Gavin, our first Hero of the Pirate Party!