Several months ago I volunteered to host and maintain the website for the drumline that Ian was a member of… I had volunteered some time ago to help maintain the site that had been built several years prior by a guy in the Twin Cities; the site was running on Joomla but because it hadn’t been updated for a while, the site getting hacked a number of times. Between that and wanting deeper access to mail admin & whatnot, I pushed for the move and a site revamp. It’s now running on WordPress, and in my opinion is a much better site for the change.
The problem now is keeping the content on the site updated. I met with the board last night, and found that because Ian decided not to join up this year, our family (including me, the webmaster) was dropped from some of the communications, so I was unaware of much that had changed recently. I keep up with the director as best as I can, but he’s a busy guy and a lot of stuff falls through the cracks. They’re a great bunch of people with great ideas for making the group work, but… Communication is a difficult thing in even the best organizations, much less a hodge-podge group of parent volunteers running a non-profit group on a shoestring budget
During the meeting last night I was asked for an update on the website, and all of a sudden I heard my buddy Deane Barker talking… Websites don’t write themselves. It’s all about content. When things don’t get updated the site gets stale, and when the site gets stale, people don’t stop by. I don’t remember all I said, but couldn’t help but think, “Good grief! That’s Deane talking!” I didn’t intend to scold or complain, but that may have been the way it came across because of the frustration I felt… just trying to convey my desire to do the job well, but not being able to do that without some cooperation and help.
At any rate, I think I got my point across, and I doubt I’ll be fired any time soon. I threw in some suggestions on how to consolidate the group’s communications – using a mailing list and some other online tools – but I could tell by the blank looks and the response the ideas weren’t well received. I’ve still got some work to do.
You should listen to me more. About all sorts of stuff.