A year in review - a project completed

12 months ago the Random Kiwi Tweeters project began as my way of spreading the word about everyday good folk who enjoy using twitter.  Now 365 days later the project has come to end.  My first goal was to blog every single day of the year however achieving that was beyond what I was capable of.

New Zealand is a land of excellent people which means that we are also a country of excellent tweeters.  Sharing our lives, stories and life happenings one tweet at a time.  From cats and dogs to cafes and restaurants, human resources professionals, farmers, stock cars, shoe shops, mums, dads, grandparents and students.  Twitter abounds with them.

From Invercargill to London, Tauranga to Toronto kiwi's abound all around the world.  And wherever they may be they still share their thoughts and loves of home.  Beaches, jandals, marmite, fush and chups twitter helps to keep on connecting us all.

Not every tweeter on the list made it to the end of 2013.  Some chose to leave twitter for their own reasons and purposes while others physically did not make it.  Random follow #100 was my good friend Jaarna Hoskins who sadly passed away from cancer.  I had the very great fortune of her being able to read the post and also the great privilege of reading it at her funeral.

RKT has been a labour of love and has touched many of those who have been blogged about.  Some people had a post written on their birthday, others at times when they were going through grief and suffering.

No person had any idea that they were going to be blogged about except two.  So for the other 298 persons it was a complete surprise.  Some people were over the moon about it.  Some said nothing. The praise and thanks I have received from everyone has been beyond what I thought it would be.

No labour of love can be completed without the help of friends.  Friends who email you suggestions of people, who encourage you to keep going, who help you overcome your own inadequacies in thinking that it can't be done.  To all those people I have a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation.  The RKT project is as much theirs as it is mine.

The RKT blog is made up of 300 references for very good, interesting and excellent people.  People who have enriched the lives of many of us through interaction, jokes and conversations.  Some of these people I have been able to meet in real life and have had the great joy of seeing the words I wrote about them being proven true.  There are many, many others who I have not met yet I sincerely hope that one day I might just get the opportunity to.

Where to from here?  The RKT project is now officially finished and I will be parking up my  twitter account.  I have spent many hours using twitter this year and while the suggestion to delete my account has risen as a perfect way to finish the year I am choosing not to do that.  What I will be doing is moving my energies and efforts over to Instagram.  I will be sharing my photos onto my twitter account but won't be directly tweeting.  It ain't going to be easy!

Why instagram?  I want to connect with people in a different way.  Twitter is all about the written word, albeit in 140 characters, whereas a picture tells a thousand words.  So my energies for 2014 will all be channeled into #project14.  There will be a tumblr site setup so you can peruse my pics and I aim to post at the very least one photo per day.  Look me up - my Instagram name is @hagmannz.  Same name and same profile photo.  I would love to interact with you over there.

I am proud of what I have achieved through the blog this year.  It has been a burden of love and an outlet that has kept me grounded.  Twitter - thank you.  I am @hagmannz and this has been Random Kiwi Tweeters 2013.

Peace.