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Building Better Club Websites - Introduction
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Beginnings |
Next Steps |
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It began with a club webmaster looking around at what others had done.
There were good and interesting websites ... but there were the other kind
too.
Peter Kidman was so horrified by the poor websites that he penned a rant about their faults for Film & Video Maker and sent it to me for comment before submission to the magazine. I saw little value in simply publishing an attack, but great possibilities in turning his sharp vision, focused thinking and considerable expertise into a positive guide for others. Thus began this series of articles. It quickly became clear that the subject needed more space than a magazine page allowed. So the printed versions became condensed highlights and on this website we could spread our wings and explain ideas in more depth. As I write this, the series of articles continues to develop. Only time will reveal whether our efforts have made a difference. But the exercise of two very different personalities collaborating has thrown up other ideas ... most exciting is the possibility for clubs to send live video over the web, again free of charge, for the benefit of members who cannot attend or even to share with other clubs. (See Finchley TV Goes on Air for details.) |
But there was more, we noted with some dismay that out of the 264 IAC
affiliated clubs around 93 had no website at all. It therefore followed that
help was needed at a even more fundamental level to get clubs to even
commit to having any website never mind improving the one they had. This
is where the
Weebly system
came in.
I had long wanted to prepare a practical, hands-on guide to help people start building a website. But the problem of writing to suit different computer systems and different web design programs held me back. Inspired by Peter's energy and enthusiasm I dug deeper and found the Weebly system which works entirely on the web itself. All you need is a web browser. What's more it is totally free. There are other free tools around but most require you to pay to have your new wesite "hosted". This one offers free hosting too. So Peter drafted articles about the principles of good website design - listed under the heading Website make-over and I started with the bricks and mortar for website virgins listed under Beginners:Build a Website We collaborated a lot and after the initial phase my practical articles became supporting pieces for the general articles.(See the Weebly way tips) We are on a crusade to help AV and movie-making clubs recognise the rich possibilities of the wired age and enjoy the publicity and club morale benefits of a good website. The IAC were persuaded to support this drive with a Best Website Competition starting in 2011. - Dave Watterson |
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Website make-over |
Beginners: build a website! |
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Using the free
Weebly system
the first seven tutorials are enough to get your website up and running.
Our "test pilots" reached that stage in just a couple of hours work.
Weebly way tipsShort guides showing how ideas from the general articles can be achieved using Weebly:
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