Been playing around with my site adding a few things, but staying away from "AmDram" style of things.

Postcards - Seems to be a great hit so far. Only put them on my site this week and already 108 hits (in 7 days).

Quizs and Games - There's loads of Java Applet and Javascript games out there, get your own up and running. Perhaps making monthly quizs for your members to get them going back to the site time and time again.

Guestbook - Now I've "adapted" the CGI script for my site, you could do the same. This lets people advertise other groups, shows, props for sale etc etc on one page...

Do any other groups have "guest books" are they used?

I know they can be dodgy, esp when you don't check what's going on there. So I do "approve" what goes on before it's shown.

Anyone got any other ideas?

Hi,

Thats one busy site you have got on the go there.......

Here's one i look after

In the throws of setting up an online survey at the moment to poll all members and patrons for thier views on everything with the lure of a pize.

Decided against the guestbook and went for the froum as it can still be used as a guestbook but people can talk to each other as well. We can screen the memebers and the moderators are emailed every time there is a new post. They then decide on modification or deletion.

Online booking is the majour one at the moment - this is being worked on as we speak and hopefully when we come back from our summer close will be in place.

I stuck up a forum but noone seems interested...

email seems to be our great strength - the email newsletter and the audition notice list are both very popular.

and online booking would confuse the hell out of our present arrangement, but our present arrangement doesn't handle online booking.... sheesh...

and nice site fishy... can I say how good it is to load a page that can actually *do* thumbnails...

The forum has its ups and downs as people wander in and out. With this forum people can opt in and out of the mailing lists as they see fit so saving additional administration.

Takes time for people to get used to the website being there and being able to use it to get the info they want. It also needs to have something you cant get by other means, hence the survey.

If all goes to plan the online booking will also run the theatres box office with many benefits.

now that would be very very nice - what system are you using?

None yet as I havent finished building it

Its an american concept, have been working with them over the last few months to modify it for the UK market. Easier said than done, its in final beta at the moment and should be ready for rollout in the next month or so.

There was an earlier topic in here about it... computerised box office or something like that.

I would say more but then id be accused of advertising

Oh, go on Fishy. I'm a moderator for this section of the site, and I'd love to moderate you......

OOOOOer misses - good job u cant see us hairy monsters blush

Its comming on a pace and should have a demo in the next couple of weeks that i will be happy with

We have a dire (IMO) website and wondered how to address this with our current webmaster without hurting any feelings - also, I doubt there is anyone who has enough time (and inclination) to take it over. Is there a company that will update and look after our website - and is this worth the money?

Well if he reads this thread he'll get the messge LOL

It's not worth the money getting someone else to do it.. Unless it's for free...

Hi aims - you dont give the website address so will have to take your word for it

There are lots of companies out there that will look after your website for the right price although there are alot of rogues as well as there are with anything.

Good way to get it done for nothing is to approach local schools and colleges and see if they would take it on using their IT dept added bonus is the youngsters then get to find out about drama and u may even get a few join.

Aims,
Please be more explicit - what is it that you don't like? (As Fishy said, give us the URL so that we can pontificate.)

There are two approaches to getting someone else to do it: the first is to subcontract management completely; the second is to get someone else to do an overhaul, then take over the management yourselves (presumably your current webmaster). I think that Fishy's College route would work very well for option 2. What you get from that is (if it's done well) a better looking site and better navigation.

If your problem is keeping the site up to date, then subcontracting will not help - you still have to give the information to the subcontractor.

Agreed with all the above ...

Perhaps if you have a local college that was interested, you could run a competition for the best new design? That way you would have several choices? We did this for new foyer designs and it worked remarkably well.

The maintenance of a site is more about keeping it up-to-date rather than design skills. It's relatively easy to train people in either HTML skills or a piece of software that you choose to use.

We have a really good designer as a member who designed and maintained our site for nearly 2 years but recently has handed over the maintenance/update side to me and between us we hope to train two other people, leaving him free for design and ideas.

I write a number of websites where the people use only notepad....

They write normal text

They save it as something.txt

They upload it through a simple FTP program


The text file is then parsed into the HTML page, and hey presto they can change the online content as frequently as they like!, without my intervention.

I don't have any examples online at the moment because the work I have done was for an intranet but the same principles will be on the internet soon....

Also depends how much maintenance we're talking about. Some of the sites I've design need absolutely minimal maintenance so I'm usually not that bothered about being the one that does it rather than offloading it to the owners. The other issue is that I used to link these sites to my portfolio and one concern was the owners would break the site somehow which would potentially reflect on my abilities.

The fundamental issues is having things on your website that will keep people coming back. Obviously news about your society, upcoming shows, reviews, photos, cast profiles etc etc are good visitor fodder, particularly if updated regularly (at least monthly if not more often). There are other more indirect ways of brining people back, for example:

Sticky Content
A number of websites provide content for free that can be displayed on your site. An example would be News (a variety of categories), Joke or Thought for the day, Famous Quotes, Satire. This way some of the content on your site changes daily without any effort from you. If you pick the right content (appealing to your visitors) then they will keep coming back.

Games
There are a variety of online flash/java etc games which can be hosted directly on your site or linked from it. I'm not talking serious/major games but novelty ones like Tetris or Asteroids, or quizzes. There are games with a musical theme that might appeal to your audience. I'm not convinced to what extent this approach works though.

Discussion Board
This is an obvious one especially to those of you familiar with this board. It builds a community of users with a common interest - your society - and is another mechanism that results in the content of your site changing daily. The problem here is getting the users to use it. It does of course require moderation.

Guest Book
I have to say I'm quite sceptical about these. I guess the question is what are you trying to achieve? Again this requires moderation. I'd probably be more likely to go for a discussion board than a guest book.

I think all that can be said has been said in this topic....

If it needs to be reopened for any reason then drop me an e-mail

Thanks