In recent months we have been putting together a new website for the Four Shires Guild of Bell Ringers and it is located at http://www.fourshires.org.uk/. The first task was to find a way to incorporate all the material from the existing site by Paul Evans (see http://homepages.which.net/~paul.evans12/4shires/) in such a way that no changes needed to be made. This has been achieved and the look and feel of the site followed that of the existing site so that they would blend seamlessly.
The existing site only dealt with the "Mid-week Outings" organised by the Guild. The new site aims to be more encompassing and deal with more of the needs of the Guild. The first new item was the creation of a Google Calendar for the all the Guild events. This is accessible from the new site but for anyone who is a registered user of Google services (e.g. GMail or iGoogle) they can access the calendar directly and if they wish to incorporate it directly into their own calendar. A few other items have been added including the October 2009 Newsletter and space for future newsletters.
What next? That is a good question. There are many things that could be done but a truly successful website is one that understands who its users are and what they want from it. We have identified the primary audience of the website as being you, the members of the Four Shires Guild. What you want from it is less clear so feedback from the members is invited. The website includes contact information, i.e.
If we find that the site is valuable to the membership, then we can make improvements to the infrastructure that underpins it, allowing additional facilities.
Roland Merrick
(Roland has invited feedback on how the web-site can be improved. It seems very churlish not to use the invitation. . . .
Also, members may be interested in a newly-added web-page, which advertises non-FSG run activities that are likely to be of benefit to members. A good example of this are the excellent educational seminars run at the Harry Windsor Ringing Centre at Kineton by Graham Nabb. Ed)