any good ones out there

[noeyedear]

looks like i've been volunteered to develop a club web site, i've already written my own commercial cms so theres no problem there, i'm a bit crap at design but have a designer in the office to help out there so should be ok, just looking for club web sites that people think are particularly good.

the site will be :-

simple
clean
functional
obvious

should i add a forum ?
do we care about search engine optimisation, does the site need to be found by people doing very general searches or is just finding it with the club name/area good enough ?
domain names, i think i'll just have the club name with sc on the end but should i go for a .org ?

i'll be providing the site, domain registration and hosting for free, should i ask for some recognition for my company in return for this service, i'm not bothered either way really ?

i'm sure there will be more questions but thats it for now.

tia

[Silver Fox]

It is not a swimming website but I am very proud of the bowling club website that I have put together with communigate and the local newspaper free of charge...why not have a look and let me know what you think.

www.communigate.co.uk/lancs/grangebowlingclub

[Juicy Lucy]

...why not have a look and let me know what you think.



I think there's a spelling mistake here, somewhere...

'Club Officers & Managment Committee'

[Silver Fox]

Now the spelling mistake has been corrected what do you think?

[Juicy Lucy]

Now the spelling mistake has been corrected what do you think?

Excellent, Silver Fox.

[Silver Fox]

Many thanks it is nice to have the thoughts of an expert...silver fox

[Osiris]

looks like i've been volunteered to develop a club web site, i've already written my own commercial cms so theres no problem there, i'm a bit crap at design but have a designer in the office to help out there so should be ok, just looking for club web sites that people think are particularly good.

the site will be :-

simple
clean
functional
obvious

should i add a forum ?
do we care about search engine optimisation, does the site need to be found by people doing very general searches or is just finding it with the club name/area good enough ?
domain names, i think i'll just have the club name with sc on the end but should i go for a .org ?

i'll be providing the site, domain registration and hosting for free, should i ask for some recognition for my company in return for this service, i'm not bothered either way really ?

i'm sure there will be more questions but thats it for now.

tia

see your pm's!

[Juicy Lucy]

Many thanks it is nice to have the thoughts of an expert...silver fox

I'd like to let this pass, the flattery is appreciated, but in all honesty I'm no expert when it comes to computers and websites.

I'm an expert at grumbling though.

[Bully]

I'm quite proud of ours, it is up-to-date, informative and easy to navigate, but then I am on it most nights working on it.

[Silver Fox]

Hi Bully...I would like to see yours (website) please...give me website address...like your pic as well is it you as a youngster ?

[Juicy Lucy]

Hi Bully...I would like to see yours (website) please...give me website address...like your pic as well is it you as a youngster ?

No, it was taken last week.

[Chris]

looks like i've been volunteered to develop a club web site, i've already written my own commercial cms so theres no problem there, i'm a bit crap at design but have a designer in the office to help out there so should be ok, just looking for club web sites that people think are particularly good.

the site will be :-

simple
clean
functional
obvious

should i add a forum ?
do we care about search engine optimisation, does the site need to be found by people doing very general searches or is just finding it with the club name/area good enough ?
domain names, i think i'll just have the club name with sc on the end but should i go for a .org ?

i'll be providing the site, domain registration and hosting for free, should i ask for some recognition for my company in return for this service, i'm not bothered either way really ?

i'm sure there will be more questions but thats it for now.

tia

My thoughts ....

Don't add a forum. Pain in the backside to police and it's abused at every opportunity by everyone!

With some appropriate meta tags it'll find it's way towards the top of any relevant searches. Certainly wouldn't go to any more effort than publicising it on the club's noticeboard, newsletters, adverts for open meet if you have one ... that sort of thing.

We have www.barracudas-sc.org.gg (http://www.barracudas-sc.org.gg) for our club domain. Not-for-profit Guernsey domains are handed out free for not-for-profit Guernsey clubs and associations, so that was easy! I registered it 8 years or more ago I think. I leave .org's for US organisations. If I was in the UK I'd probably go for a .org.uk .... but saying that I'd like www.barracudas.com (http://www.barracudas.com)!

Keep it clean, simple, uncluttered, and, most of all, up-to-date! If you can give several reliable people the power to update the site .... do it. Takes the pressure off you. (That was my downfall .... ) Your CMS will handle that fine I imagine.

At the very least your company should have a logo/banner/link on the site.

Chris

P.S. The Barracudas site hasn't received much love from me for a long long long time ..... I'll get around to it sometime!

[Bully]

Hi Bully...I would like to see yours (website) please...give me website address...like your pic as well is it you as a youngster ?

Link (http://www.windsor-sc.org.uk/?MID=20041115321)

[noeyedear]

My thoughts ....

Don't add a forum. Pain in the backside to police and it's abused at every opportunity by everyone!



ooh, I know, just had an attack on one of my servers through phpbb2, took me a couple of days to reverse the damage and patch up the holes.

thanks for the other comments, content and navigation are the prime drivers for me and yep, i don't intend to maintain the content, the cms is wysiwyg and allows the site to be totally extensible, if you can use word then you can use this but i do control the elements and styles of the elements that can be added through the cms so you don't end up with something really ugly.

i'll probably throw something together over the weekend and see what you all think.

[noeyedear]

Link (http://www.windsor-sc.org.uk/?MID=20041115321)

nice, what does the login allow you to do ?

[Leprechaun]

looks like i've been volunteered to develop a club web site, i've already written my own commercial cms so theres no problem there, i'm a bit crap at design but have a designer in the office to help out there so should be ok, just looking for club web sites that people think are particularly good.

the site will be :-

simple
clean
functional
obvious

should i add a forum ?
do we care about search engine optimisation, does the site need to be found by people doing very general searches or is just finding it with the club name/area good enough ?
domain names, i think i'll just have the club name with sc on the end but should i go for a .org ?

i'll be providing the site, domain registration and hosting for free, should i ask for some recognition for my company in return for this service, i'm not bothered either way really ?

i'm sure there will be more questions but thats it for now.

tia

try www.upthebeavers.com for the benchmark and how it should operate......

[Bully]

nice, what does the login allow you to do ?

It allows you access to the members area, which is not an automated system it requires me to activate it, this can slow down registration but it ensures that none members or ex-members do not gain access.
At the moment we only have personal pb's and our photo gallery, which does have our swimmers just in costumes. This is another way of ensuring privacy.
I use the picasa system and add links from our site to there, which helps keeps the bandwidth down.

[noeyedear]

try www.upthebeavers.com for the benchmark and how it should operate......

pure quality, alas the humour may be lost on my potential audience. however, if the club wants to promote masters then a site of that nature is definately the way to go.

[noeyedear]

It allows you access to the members area, which is not an automated system it requires me to activate it, this can slow down registration but it ensures that none members or ex-members do not gain access.
At the moment we only have personal pb's and our photo gallery, which does have our swimmers just in costumes. This is another way of ensuring privacy.
I use the picasa system and add links from our site to there, which helps keeps the bandwidth down.

so, you can only see your own pb's and not those of other members ?

would there be any problems with displaying the pb's of all club members if you were authenticated to the site via a secure login that was only given to you if you were a member or parent of a member ?

[Bully]

so, you can only see your own pb's and not those of other members ?

would there be any problems with displaying the pb's of all club members if you were authenticated to the site via a secure login that was only given to you if you were a member or parent of a member ?

Sorry, I didn't explain very well, I generate reports (using our Team Manager program, I'm the Team Manager as well) for all our competitive swimmers in squad order in the members area, so anyone with member privilege's can view each others. These hopefully help parents/swimmers fill out their meet entry forms, or I generate a seasons best time (Oct 07 - Sept 08), which is a slightly different report.

[noeyedear]

Sorry, I didn't explain very well, I generate reports (using our Team Manager program, I'm the Team Manager as well) for all our competitive swimmers in squad order in the members area, so anyone with member privilege's can view each others. These hopefully help parents/swimmers fill out their meet entry forms, or I generate a seasons best time (Oct 07 - Sept 08), which is a slightly different report.

got it, thats pretty much what i was thinking about providing, don't think the club is using any team management software yet though, i'll have to drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century i s'pose.

whats the 'industry' standard for team management software, i'm guessing its going to be ridiculously expensive and we are going to end up with me writing some vb or something equally as crap.

[Bully]

There are several available, I/we use an old system which is the Solent Team Manager package, the guy who designed it I believe is an aircraft engineer (to much info probably), anyway it uses an access database system, and I like it, but I'm sure someone will tell you otherwise.
It does everything I/we need, open meet/club champs/team gala reports, swimmer history reports, pb reports, club record reports, team selection reports, meet qualifying reports. As I've said it is an old package, but it works well.
For running meets/galas we use the sportsystem package, but again I'm sure someone will tell you the Hi'Tek system is better.
Hope this is of some help?

[Chris]

Hy-Tek system Team and Meet Manager software is better!

www.hy-tekltd.com (http://www.hy-tekltd.com) for more info.

Chris

[noeyedear]

thanks guys

[Bully]

Hy-Tek system Team and Meet Manager software is better!

www.hy-tekltd.com (http://www.hy-tekltd.com) for more info.

Chris

They think it's all over, it is now!
I've just been on the Solent website and the old git has retired :aarrgghh:

[Spidey]

I like this post card, shame that you can not get them anymore.

[swimstore]

Hy-Tek system Team and Meet Manager software is better!

www.hy-tekltd.com (http://www.hy-tekltd.com) for more info.

Chris

I wouldn’t say that from the mess they made at counties, two years now it been nothing but a joke.

[G-unit]

Hi there, have just come across this thread, some really cool sites. I think one of the most important things you need to do is keep it up to date, even if there is nothing new in your club, a news story tenuously linked to swimming or just something funny. There are loads of sites out there where you can get free web templates www.oswd.org, www.templatemonster.com(you have to pay) unless you have a swf catcher. Another great resoruce is www.dynamicdrive.com menus scrollers and other great stuff. I'm currently in the process of writing a members area using a bit of script (php) connecting to a mysql database, so free basically FREE! So our swimmers can log in and based on their user type view their history, pbs meet results etc.

[G-unit]

Hi there, have just come across this thread, some really cool sites. I think one of the most important things you need to do is keep it up to date, even if there is nothing new in your club, a news story tenuously linked to swimming or just something funny. There are loads of sites out there where you can get free web templates www.oswd.org, www.templatemonster.com(you have to pay) unless you have a swf catcher. Another great resoruce is www.dynamicdrive.com menus scrollers and other great stuff. I'm currently in the process of writing a members area using a bit of script (php) connecting to a mysql database, so free basically FREE! So our swimmers can log in and based on their user type view their history, pbs meet results etc.

[G-unit]

just shows how technical you need to be to setup a web site, i,ve managed to post twice, wicked. DOH!