I'm glad that the excellently-run overall promotion campaign reaped the sales Charles, and interesting that you did have that many views on here. We look forward to the next big band night!
Russell - your skills are many and variant

. I do think it's an excellent resource and it should only be a question of keeping it in people's minds. 2000 page views a month is a good count for a village site. Maybe (like me) people don't realise that it has that level of interest - they think they're the only person looking at it

and so don't see it as a useful place to advertise/discuss...
I 'signed up' to get an email whenever there is a new posting on the forum, and find that keeps me engaged. It did take me a few visits to figure out how to do it, but as a 'newbie' to the village, it has really helped.
Perhaps a simple link on the home page for users to get the same effect? It would of course only work for people who have signed up with an email address, but might help to drive postings?
To be cheeky, we might even automatically sign users up for getting notifications (maybe with an opt-out, rather than opt-in)?
"Enter your email address
here to get a note when something new is posted on the forum".
I do think it would help to advertise in the gazette occasionally. E.g."Did you know you can sell your unwanted items through the village forum? <link address>". "2000 people a month check out our village forum"

. If we were paying (how much?) then I don't see a conflict of interest.
Any more brainstorm ideas?
Charles