Cherie Kurarangi Sweeney, neighbour of Ngaruawahi baby Serenity Scott-Dinnington whose death is the subject of a police investigation, has started a facebook page STOP death by abuse of our children.

When the online news story about Ms Sweeney’s page, which aims to dispel the “anti-nark” culture around child abuse, first appeared on Monday morning 1,000 people had ‘liked’ the page. By the next morning that figure was nearly 8,000.

Many of the people posting supportive comments on Ms Sweeney’s page appear to be middle aged or older – which shouldn’t be any surprise. 2011 statistics suggest that over 28 million over 45s are active on Facebook. 

As an ever wider cross section of the international community become Facebook users, people are becoming more sophisticated about using social media to communicate with their communities. 

One obvious example is the Wellingtonians Against the Wellywood Sign page which has attracted over 26,500 likes. But it’s not just about campaigns; Facebook community pages are also being used to good effect, to connect communities on a more long term and sustainable basis. 

Many towns, villages and suburbs now have their own pages which act rather like fast-moving community noticeboards with people posting regarding anything from missing cats to knitting circles or to raise awareness of community concerns. 

An excellent example – and probably one of the longest-standing in New Zealand - is the Featherston, Wairarapa Facebook page, set up by my former Ideas Shop colleague Emma McCleary and which now has over 850 ‘likes’.

Many residents are posting on a daily basis on a wide range of issues – the burning topic at present being a sudden change in the taste of local tap water. See the Wellington suburb of Aro Valley’s Facebook page for more. 

I live in the Wellington suburb of Kelburn. It’s a pleasant enough place but it doesn’t have either a community centre or a residents’ association. So, inspired by the Featherston and Aro Valley examples, I’ve set up a community page for Kelburn. 

It’s very easy to do – even if your only previous experience of social media is setting up your own Facebook page. I decided to do it at 9pm on a Tuesday night and by 10.30pm the page was live. 

I sent ‘like’ invitations to all my local Facebook friends, made some posters to stick up in the local shops and asked the local primary school to carry a message about the page in their newsletter. 

Just over a week later it has 93 ‘likes’, and is growing steadily. Gratifyingly, most of the last 70 or so people to have joined up I don’t know from Adam and while I’m still making the effort to post notices on a daily basis to maintain the momentum, other people are starting to post too. 

I hope that, like the Featherston and Aro Valley sites, it will ultimately take on a life of its own and become an increasingly useful forum for sharing community news and views.