Trust In Yellow

I sent a 'pm' to Dan regarding the website. This is his reply:

"Hi Al, I don't mean to be a pessimist and certainly don't mean to knock what on the face of it is a good idea but unfortunately it isn't as easy as asking someone to draw a new design for a new website. There are many many things that we need to consider first so the best thing would be for a few of us to get our heads together and work out what the brief would be for the person/persons being asked to design. they need to know what their limitations would be. I'm sure most people could draw a nice picture but its something else entirely to turn that design into a living breathing site that is easy to update. The latter is the most important factor for TIY.

First question. Once someone has designed it, who would build it? The current trust website is an out of the box package, no design or building required. I just installed it on a server, customised a few preferences and you were away.
The original site was a custom built site and we got rid of that because of the limitations is gave us and the reliance on one person to be able to update. It's quite a responsibility on someone and means that TIY are limited to only being able to update when that person is available to do it.

Let's get heads together and have a real think about it before we commit to anything in public. If you want to invite me along to a meeting to discuss it i'm happy to come, otherwise i'll speak to you on saturday about it."


Now I am not a technohead, so I dont know how easy it is or isnt. Rob's site is far better than the trust site, and for what he pays for it, it would seem worth it to me.

I have looked at some of the other trust sites and some look far better than ours:

http://www.ecfcst.org.uk/

This is my favourite of the ones I have looked at, it looks good (well laid out), easy to navigate. Can we do something similar (or even better?).

Of course Dan's comments about being able to update it are very valid. Can it be that more than one person can update the site with news within their respective remits within the trust? Perhaps seek sponsership of the site?

Open for comments and suggestions.

Rob's site is updated using Microsoft Frontpage which is a piece of software he has on his Pc at home. Whilst it allows him to update his site without problems, it means he can only do it from that PC (i.e. he can't login to the website and update it from anywhere). That means that he is the only one who can update it.
For the purposes of his own website that is perfectly adequate, and he will pay a small hosting charge for the space and bandwidth his site uses in the same way that the trust do for theirs (irrespective of what the site looks like).
the first TIY site was done in a very similar way using an editing tool to edit the "code" behind the pages and upload them to a server. Paul O'B and myself were the only two people on the committee at the time with HTML (the "code" language) knowledge and the appropriate editing tools to be able to update the site.
For a trust the best option is that a site is developed that a number of people could update without needing to have any special tools of skills.
There are a number of ways to "skin a cat" as they say. The most simple is to use an out of the box package like the one the trust uses currently. The exeter city site you highlighted also uses one (but a different one), as do many other trusts, because they can be updated by 1 of any number of people from anywhere via a website admin console. The out of the box package could be tarted up and set up by someone before hand and then its very easy to maintain. Sam tried to do this with a package called Joomla, but it didn't quite work for reasons sam would have to explain.
The other option is someone designs and builds a set of fairly static information pages with information that doesn't need to change, and integrates a news system into the site which allows people to post news stories. This would give you the best of both worlds. On the face of it a site designed to your exact requirements with limited reliance on someone skilled to maintain it.
As I say, many options.

Please note that there are problems with the current website and at present we are unable to update.

what problems? I've just been able to update it without any problems. If someone tells me what they want to do or want to be able to do, or tells me what they are trying to achieve I will help them with it but nobody has asked me.
Equally as i've said all along, if someone tells me what they want on a website i will help.

Thanks Dan, good feedback. I understand it a bit more now.

So the question is, what do we want?

Well, something a bit more pleasing to the eye, i.e, better layout.

Perhaps several areas that can be updated by various users for coach travel, minutes of meetings, upcoming events, news etc.

Perhaps static pages that only need be changed as and when, e.g. who the committee members are, the constitution, what the trust is all about etc.

Is it possible that any software requirements for people to update the site can be passed to them as and when necessary like on a cdr?

These are just my thoughts, so feel free to join in peeps

i now have received feedback from both Dan and Sam regarding Andy's problem and Andy should be able to access now as i have mailed the details to him.