Hi, I am Wes Rogers and I am your new webmaster (as of March, 2008.)
Thanks to Jeff and Donna Gordon (DTMs) for setting up and managing the District 27 Website for several
years! As a volunteer activity, this is a time consuming hobby and Donna and Jeff have retired from
full time site management although they are continuing to help with consulting.
Some highlights of the site development goals and methods that Donna and Jeff have done include:
- Provide a number of standard resources that you can use year-after-year to help
you be better leaders and improve your efforts to serve your clubs, your areas,
and your district.
- Provide fresh, up-to-date news to you about contests, training, conferences, and
other District-related news and events.
- Remove outdated information as soon as it is no longer applicable.
- A left navigation bar to provide a logical structure to navigate and help you to find infomation.
- A site search feature
on every page (currently in the right column) to allow you to search for information
-- the search results get updated weekly, and when a significant change coccurs,
it gets updated right then.
- A method for you to use to be notified whenever a page you're interested
in has changed. Currently this is by using ChangeDetection.com at the bottom
of the right column.
- Usage of a website database and related programming
to streamline site maintenance processes and assure timely updates
to routine requests.
- Sophisticated spam-proofing techniques to do better-than-industry-standard Best
Practices to keep the spambots from scavenging email addresses.
-
On line registration for Conferences and TLIs.
I joined the District 27 public relations team headed by Mike Schultz, who took over as the PRO (District Public Relations Officer) in January, 2008 and Mike appointed me “Deputy PRO” and, later, “Website Administrator.” Subsequently, I was appointed District PRO for the 2008 - 2009 year succeeding Mike.
- Make updates and maintenance very easy and provide for easy transition of website administrator duties from one year to the next. (In any job, one of the top priorities is to train your successor; else, how can you ever expect to be promoted.)
- Allow a non-administrator (non-technical) to add certain types of content to the site through standard fill-in-the form processes. This will further streamline the process of getting information to you, while still maintaining the aesthetic qualities of the website. (This was one of Jeff and Donna’s goals and was already partially fulfilled by them.)
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Allow the website to show you an additional customized page depending on whether you are a Club Officer, which officer, which area you're in, whether you're an Area Governor or Division Governor, etc. This will give you a stream-lined view of the information that may be of high importance to you specifically. (This was also a goal established by Donna & Jeff.) I am adding to the concept by introducing roles such as Area Governor, Division Governor, District Officer, and so forth. Thus, with each new year, the new district officers just need to have the roles adjusted and the new administration will take over the update chores by “simply” updating the roles and giving the new officers the handbook.
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Give the site dynamic content. Did you know that there is a District 27 web log entitled “POWER News for District 27 Toastmasters” at http://tm27.wordpress.com !? I plan to add specific news aggregator feeds that include this blog and also those of the District Governor and all of the Division and Area Governors and other District officers. The idea is to give each of these officers a location where they can easily publish everything that they need to about their division, area, or function. That way, all Toastmasters in the district will be easily able to find their governors’ web site and relevant information such as goals, contests, coach and mentor opportunities and so forth.
If you have ideas for improving the District 27 web site, I'd really like to hear from you. Send me your ideas via email to:
Ideas at D27TM.org.
Best Regards,
Wes Rogers, ACG/ALB
District 27 Website Administrator