MORE than 170 users are now registered on The Westmorland Gazette's online forums, posting over 200 articles (forum.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk), with the environment and development emerging as THE hot topics. Searching the internet for other chat rooms', I found there's a lot to talk about.

Our hospital patients now have a Virtual Room for visiting at justviziting.com courtesy of Kendal Hospital Broadcasting http://www.kendalhospitalradio.org.uk/.

Justviziting.com is a free and secure online service developed by North East-based Paul Smith and Jeff Cummings, and it aims to help the family and friends of those in hospital to get in touch and keep in touch.

Paul runs the well-known Three Tuns public house in Gateshead where his friend Jeff and Jeff's father, Albert, were regulars every Tuesday night for their weekly pint together. When Albert was diagnosed with a serious illness, at the beginning of 2006 and went into the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle for his operation, friends at the Three Tuns were constantly asking Paul for news on Albert's progress.

This led to Paul having the idea of posting a daily update on the pub's own website, and from there to justviziting. With the new site, a relative or friend of the patient (or even the patient themselves if they are well enough) can quickly and easily create their very own visiting room. As well as catching up with the latest news, visitors can also post their own messages in the room and contact each other directly.

Kendal Hospital Broadcasting Manager John Williamson could immediately see the benefits for hospital listeners, and a link to the justviziting.com can now be found on the hospital broadcasters website at www.kendalhospitalradio.org.uk .

If the health of the environment is a concern, one would naturally turn to the Environment Agency website at http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/ . It was a disappointment when it came to online discussions. There wasn't any feedback platform, other than email. The section Your Environment' was their environment' for news and information.

The future of local government in Cumbria is the topic for discussion on www.bettergovernmentforcumbria.org.uk set up by an alliance of five district councils in Cumbria, to provide a platform for the public's views on issues like the unitary authority debate. However, the only option for feedback is to select the Have Your Say button, which facilitates an email to the local government of your choice. What happens after that, I am not sure.

If you want to be in with the green crowd' check out Glastonbury's The Big Green Gathering website at http://www.big-green-gathering.com/. The site is full of last year's information, but the 2007 event registration information is at the Contact BGG link. You may not be able to post comments, but their Links section is quite the resource.

The Moorland Association is encouraging dog walkers to treat their dogs with more respect with a new podcast of virtual dogs called "Paws on the Moors" on http://moorsforthefuture.org.uk/mftf/information/dogs.htm. It states: "As well as entertaining people, we hope this podcast will also give an insight into the moorlands from a dog's world and promote positive messages about the moors." The site's creators clearly want walkers to be thoughtful about the countryside and their canines.

If you have an interest, there will be a forum out there for you. If not, why not start one of your own?

If you want to start your own forum, why not visit our new Forum section, http://forum.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk and join the growing numbers talking about issues important to them? Once you register, you can log in and join any existing debate, or create a new topic under an existing forum. If you want a new category set up, please send your request, with a brief description of the issue(s) to me, the web editor, kate.whiteside@kendal.newsquest.co.uk and I will be in touch.