We have some great news to share and thought it might be time to start dropping in the occasional “What’s ’Appening” update to keep you all informed about latest developments, new features and recent items you may have missed. We have lots to tell you so let’s crack on!

The Southland App now viewable on the web

We are thrilled to announce that The Southland App, previously available exclusively as a smartphone application, can now also be viewed and shared online.

This will be welcome news for many of you who prefer accessing content on bigger screens, or with older phones. Navigation mirrors the smartphone app layout so it’s familiar and easy to follow, regardless of which device you are using.

Our preferred device is still the cellphone App, which remains free to download from the Google Play and Apple App stores, but it now also has its own website.

You can share The Southland App content to your favourite social media channels from both the web and the smartphone app.

When using The Southland App on your phone, remember to keep location services and alerts turned on so that content relevant to where you are loads first and you can be kept in touch with important announcements.

‘How To’ videos

Our own Claire Russell has been busy during lockdown recording a series of helpful videos explaining how to access and use different features of The Southland App. These can be found under the “About Us” section. Please feel free to share these videos, especially to anyone who is new to The Southland App. There are tips for absolute beginners attempting to download from the app store, to helpful tricks such as how to increase the text size to make stories easier to read on your phone.

Supporting local businesses

We’ve revamped our Shop Local section to help people find businesses that are trading, and under what restrictions, during Level 3. We’ve added a “Yes We're Open” directory to our home page. Those with business page listings on The Southland App link straight through to that so you can find everything you need to know about how to contact and use those businesses safely. And congratulations to all those businesses that have found inventive and clever ways to trade contactlessly.

Another change is the combining of public notices and job vacancies under one button "Notices | Jobs" from the home page. Please get in touch if you need to place a public notice or have a job vacancy you would like to advertise.

Become a Supporter

The Southand App and Advocate South have always been made available for free to readers. That’s because our content has been supported by the local businesses that purchase advertising space to promote their goods and services. We’re now all in an uncertain economic period and many of those advertisers are having to make tough decisions around their spending. So, for the first time ever, we’re asking our readers to make a contribution towards the production and distribution of their local news. We’ve signed up to PressPatron, a platform that allows supporters to make recurring or one-off contributions to their favourite media sites. Participation is entirely voluntary, and the amount you contribute is entirely up to you. If you’d like to become a supporter, you can read more about the scheme on the "Support Local News" page.

Jan Bilton’s recipes

Those of you who are readers of Advocate South may have been missing the weekly cooking page by renowned food writer and cook Jan Bilton. Did you know all of her weekly recipes are also accessible on The Southland App under the "Cook" tab on our Eat | Drink | Stay section. These stay live for a whole year so there are plenty of delicious ideas for you to try.

Southlanders Abroad

Have you checked out our Southlanders Abroad series? We've invited Southlanders who are living overseas to send us their stories about how their life has changed amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and their stories are proving extremely popular.

If you are a Southlander living abroad, or know someone who is, please encourage them to get in touch with us and send their observations for inclusion in the series. Email [email protected]

That series is one of several interesting bits and pieces you can find under our community section, now renamed “Team Southland". This is where you’ll find out clubs and groups listings as well as links to videos of Southlanders doing their thing. If you come across an interesting video link that you think should be included, please let us know by sending us an email. We also keep our “Shout Outs” in this section, where you can send messages of thanks or congratulations.

In the news

Amidst the worry and panic of a global pandemic, there have been some really inspirational and fun stories coming through locally that we’ve loved to tell:

• Congratulations to Invercargill cycling brothers Matthew and Jason Dobson who cycled for 24-hours last weekend to raise more than $7000 for family friends who recently lost their father to COVID-19. Although they never left their living room, they each travelled 445.26km during their stationary challenge. If you missed the story you can read it HERE.

• The talented Schmidt family has put their lockdown time to use writing and recording a song, complete with music video, about their experience. Read their story HERE.

• Southland and Otago highland dancers teamed up to collaborate on a fun dance video during lockdown. Read what they got up to HERE.

• Others, like Barbara Robertson, have turned to more traditional pastimes. She and her cousin Barbara Pollard have managed to knit and extraordinary array of garments during lockdown. Check out their efforts HERE.

So, as you can see, there’s plenty Appening here on The Southland App. 

Thank you so much using The Southland App and encouraging others to also download it. Well over 19,000 people have downloaded The Southland App. Every months we’re seeing 11,000 unique users, and an average of 13,000 screen views every day – as many as 64,000 on a big news day. We look forward to welcoming many more users via our new web platform.

Thank you all for your continued and growing support of this 100% locally owned and operated Southland news media business.