ORGANISERS of this year's Cleveland Coast Maritime Folk Festival have become the latest to benefit from The Northern Echo's CommuniGate service.

The festival, which began last Friday and runs until Sunday in conjunction with the Captain Cook birthday celebrations, has launched its own website to reach a wider audience.

It began as a weekend festival in 1996, aimed at raising awareness of the region's outstanding maritime heritage. Since then, it has grown to a ten-day programme of events across Cleveland.

Folk recording artist Richard Grainger of Stockton helped to organise the event. He contacted The Northern Echo - The Clarion's sister paper - to take advantage of the CommuniGate service.

The service enables charities and non profit-making groups to create their own websites without the need for complex web authoring skills and, since its September launch, 140 groups have been able to go on-line.

For more details of the festival contact (01642) 861899 or log on to www.communigate.co.uk/ne/maritimefolk

If you would like to take advantage of the free website service contact Alison Nicholson on (01325) 505270 or email community