June 2004
International Recognition
There has been only one song on the lips of Kythera-Family.net’s own George “Webmaster” Poulos this month: “New York New York”. Strangely enough it all began in Vienna. At the beginning of May the winners of one of the major international website competitions “Prix Ars Electronica” were announced in Vienna, and Kythera-Family.net shared 4th place in the Community category. 4th place isn’t bad when you are up again thousands of other websites from all over the world. Before the celebrations were over we were contacted by Pamela L. O'Connell of the New York Times who wanted to write a piece about Kythera-Family.net. Her article – “An Island Reunited” – was printed and went online at the end of May and understandably enough the site programmers reported a mamoth rise in visitors to our website. Since then the site has been delivering up to 636 pages of information per hour to visitors. It has certainly put Kythera on a lot of people’s radar and it wouldn’t be surprising if tourism to the island increases as a result. We have requested permission from New York to reproduce the article in the “Written about Us” section of the site and hope to have it there for you soon.
Email from Fiji
The day before I had to finish writing this article I received the email below. It gives you some idea of how websites – like Kytherians themselves – have no borders. Here it is reproduced with the permission of the author:
Dear James,
My name is Peter Castrission, last son of Jack Castrission (dec) of Niagara Cafe fame. I am currently in Fiji for a 3 year posting working for the Australian Immigration department at the Australian High Commission in Suva. I would like to write the story of the Niagara Cafe and the Castrission brothers and add them to your wonderful site.
Even though I was born in Gundagai, NSW, I feel a real closeness to my roots on Kythera. Dad never went back after arriving as a 14 year old in 1921. My mother was Australian (born in Gundagai). They lived in a house with a magnificent garden called 'Kythera' on Mt Parnassus in Gundagai. My place was always called 'little Kythera". After mum passed away in 1986 my brother and I decided we should take dad back, however things didn't work out as he passed away shortly before the intended trip in 1987. A huge regret, however my brother, nephew and I did make the pilgrimage in 1995, a wonderful, emotional moment for all of us to stand in the family house in Kastrisanika.
Any ways I think you have done a magnificent job and it obviously has motivated me to write the story.
Regards
Peter Castrission
'Little Kythera', Suva, Fiji Islands
August 7th
With the organisational talents of the indespensible Eleni Malanos and the invaluable support of the Kytherian Association of Australia, we are organising a Kythera-Family.net fundraiser in Sydney on August 7 this year. More details will be forthcoming in the next newsletter, but keep the evening open if you don’t want to miss the fun.
James Prineas, Website Team Leader Europe
