One of my goals for many years has been to create a presence on the web for Christ-Youth. After many false-starts, and half-baked attempts, I think we may finally have one.
I never wanted anything extravagant or cutting edge, just a place where students, parents, and youth workers could go to access information, i.e., dates, schedules, pictures, places of interest…those types of things.
Late this spring, I began looking at some options, and stumbled upon what is called CMS, Content Management System, software. Long story short, CMS is computer software used to create, edit, manage, and publish content in a consistently organized fashion. Typically used as a “blogging” platform, CMS is that and much more. (Facebook & MySpace are a variation of CMS)
Many youth groups have started to use CMS for control of their websites, but enough technical junk…on to the good stuff.
At the top, you’ll see the banner, nothing too exciting here, my plan is to rotate the picture on the right side.
Starting down the right column you have the Schedules/Events/Forms section. Clicking on either of these entries will take you to the corresponding page, which will contain:
Event Info (dates, times, costs, etc.)
Downloadable Registration Forms
Downloadable Calendars & Newsletters, etc.
Farther down will be a link section, followed by a link to our Flickr Account, where I will attempt to do a better job of uploading pictures of our events.
One of the greatest advantages of CMS is this panel your reading right now. This section will allow Janet and myself to post whatever we choose…information, rants, opinions, schedule changes, accolades, pictures, newsworthy items, etc. The advantage is everyone will be able to comment, add to, etc.
This is a work in progress, and by no means complete. My purpose in sending this early version to you, is to allow you, the youth workers, a chance to comment, add to, critique, assist me in this process. Take a look at the site and let me know what you think. If you don’t like something or would like to see something added, feel free to let me know.
One thing I plan to change is how you will get to this site…eventually you will be able to go to www.christ-youth.com which is the domain we’ve had for years, and I realized this morning you can’t go back to the “post” section once your on one of the schedule pages….gotta fix that.
God Bless
Joel
