Rotary Wheel

The Rotary Club of Windsor (1918)
Web Site Committee Page

Our Club is Located in Windsor Ontario Canada

The Next Meeting is scheduled at the call of the new chair

NOTICE

After 14 years in the position of club webmaster I am now leaving that position as of the last day of June, 2011. Family illness problems have forced this decision.
It is my understanding that the Rotary 1918 Board is making arrangements for a new web site and web committee. For the near future I have been asked to keep the existing site visible if not up to date until a new site is in place. I have recommended that any new webmaster should start from scratch and borrow pages from the existing site as he/she sees fit.

There are many approaches to our electronic information world these days and each webmaster's unique background will dictate what site management direction is best. Many of our new young Rotarian committee chairpersons are going off on their own to support publicity on their projects - our club web site committee tried its' best to draw them into a uniform approach to web work but that stratagy was not accepted. They had their own favourite Internet tools to work with and we began to be viewed as old fashioned in using our HTML code writing. The Social Networking products are also viewed as a better way to go by the younger set.

A sample of Rotary Club of Windsor (1918) on Facebook

It is not without regret that I give up my dealings with the Rotary web site. The background research work on our speakers and the digital photography were especially interesting.

Thanks to our committee members
who have contributed to the development of our site over the past 14 years.

Gary Champ
Your "original" Webmaster

an award to your retiring webmaster a final audience photo from the stage


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The Rotary (1918) Web site Committee was born during the Summer of 1997 and it launched the first version of a Rotary (1918) home page in early Fall of 1997. Our Rotary club has changed its' club committee structure many times over the past decade and in the wake of these changes our Web Site Committee has developed or revised many site pages. We need to continue our revamping or archiving work in order to reflect the reality of our present administrative configuration.
Just how big should our web site be?
How do we assure that our web site committee mandate continues to meet the expectations of the club executive and those who regularly view our output?
Any web site redesign work we do needs some thoughtful input from our successive new executive teams - we want to move in the same direction as our club leaders but they must listen to our observations on the reality of our ability to provide the work hours to meet their expectations.
Read this Rotary article called "Lost in Cyberspace" for some insight on how Web Sites serve their clubs.

Here are some thoughts from our friends at ROTI


Should our website be Web 2.0 or 3.0?

There is some confusion about web technology.

Web 1.0 is what this site is - we present useful information on a website that is pretty much static. We do not collect information about our visitors. We do not care where they shop or who they know.

Web 2.0 technology allows readers to reply to messages or information on the site (blogs). More important though, Web 2.0 technology compiles information from a particular site about what you like, what you buy and things like that. Amazon has been using it for years - 'People that bought xxx also bought yyy'. Facebook is also an example of Web 2.0 - 'Your friend is friends with xxx, so you should be friends with him/her also'.

Web 3.0 takes this a step farther, and gathers information from many sites, like your friends in Facebook, what you bought from Amazon, and what web sites you visit, and then makes suggestions for you.


Rotary E-Learning Center

Our Rotary International web site is an invaluable resource for all Rotarians


Webmaster at work

Welcome to the Web site Committee Page

The information below describes the mandate and activities of this committee and lists the current year's members.
We have prepared a series of links for new Webmasters or others interested in discovering how web pages may be constructed.
Please Email us at ghp@uwindsor.ca if you run across web related links that you would like to share with us.




Web site Committee Mandate


The Web site Committee shall:

Comprehensive and "up-to-date ness"

It has been our practice to distribute our weekly web site workload according to our sense of the value of individual pages at certain time periods. Our priority at this time is assigned thusly:
  1. Home Page
  2. Upcoming Meetings Page
  3. Past Meeting Report Pages
  4. Wheel Page
  5. Photography Activity Pages
  6. The Web site Committee Page
  7. Site Index Page
  8. Rotary Information Pages
  9. Current Fund Raising Pages
  10. Development of new Web pages
  11. General Updating of Committee Pages
  12. Searching for broken links
  13. Using search engines on our site to see what turns up. If the search uncovers old, antiquated Web pages, we remove them.


Web Site Advantages

  1. The Internet has increased the speed and efficiency of communication to other Rotarians. Our web site has made possible the reduction in size of our office staff by becoming a 24 hour, 7 day a week source of Rotary (1918) information thereby reducing the necessity of contact with office staff.
  2. We provide an Internet link to the Club for our travelling or incapacitated members and past members who have relocated or retired from service club activity.
  3. We are now the de facto historians for our club through our continuously expanding past meeting reports, Wheel history links and weekly picture album pages. In exercising this function, we continuously keep information about past accomplishments before club members as a source of pride in past service and stimulation for further activities.
  4. We are the club librarians, picture takers, and a contact source through Email.
  5. We provide the pictures for the on line rosters that our Internet connected members now receive on a regular basis. We have a special page for recording pictures of our newest members so that members can properly recognize them and make an effort to include them in club activities.
  6. We provide a long range schedule for upcoming meeting plans and research information links for each of the speakers so that members can come to meetings better prepared to understand topics and ask questions of the presenters
  7. We have become a ready source of information for publicity purposes - providing pictures to magazines and information about our activities and past endeavours. Our speakers often visit our site to get a feeling about the audience they will face.
  8. We construct individual pages for each Rotary committee describing their mandate and activities. This allows a sense of continuity at the annual changeover of committee members and as committees add new members during the year.
  9. We provide online information on the club organizational structure so that members will know who does what. As the membership changes during the Rotary year, the changes can be reflected in the committee structure pages.
  10. We support our fundraising activities by first publicizing their efforts and then reporting on their financial results as is often required by local regulations.
  11. New and potential Rotarians can find out about Rotary and what our club does through our pages
  12. Exchange students keep their families aware of their Rotary connections through the online picture albums we produce for every Rotary meeting and event.
  13. Your webmaster receives many Emails throughout the year from people who participate in or wish to attend our fund raising events. Our Office cooperates with us to assure that all questions are properly answered.
  14. We provide maps, information links and search tools for visiting Rotarians
  15. We have developed a "links" page which assists Rotarians and other interested parties in their searches for information.
  16. We encourage the effective use of the Internet and Email as a resource for information and communication for the club and Rotarians.
  17. We encourage the club and Rotarians to frequently access select Internet web sites and Rotary publications in order for them to stay updated about Rotary.
  18. We often publicize the fund raising events of our other district clubs in order to entice our web site audience to attend their activities.
  19. We track the readership of some of the most often viewed pages on our site in order to ascertain the effectiveness of our web presentations. We also collect statistics on who is visiting our site from other nations.
  20. Rotary International now insists that every District Governor must connect via the Internet to their home office and recommends that every district have its own web site to improve communications between clubs, DGs, DG staff and Rotary International. ROTI members world wide have contributed to this over the past 5 years.
    Email linkage has now become the standard procedure used for 90% of the establishment of projects, matching grants, GSE planning, ISE planning and final reporting including accounting to Rotary International.

Observations from your webmaster

One of our group's objectives has always been to keep web site costs to a minimum. I would hate to see our web site efforts criticized by members because of the cost of producing pages and using Internet Provider services.
It is my belief that our site has enabled our club to reduce the cost of our office by providing a 7 day a week, 24 hour a day web site information facility. Brenda has worked closely and successfully with us over the years as have earlier office managers. Our members have, albeit somewhat slowly, gradually come to understand and to accept this new information age.

"When he became Rotary International President in 2000-01, Frank Devlyn called on ROTI members to assist him in creating a major Internet presence in every club and District in the Rotary world. That changed the way for all communications between Rotary International and Rotary clubs and Districts, so that everything that used to be handled by snail mail is now conducted through the Internet."
Reference

In Wheel mailing costs alone we have saved many dollars.
For most members, Email is now our standard method of communication.
Members are now regularly using the on-line make-up tool.
Our site has become the club history facility.
We help keep the phone traffic down in our office through our information services.
We are an inexpensive source of publicity for the club.
You may have noted that many of our speakers refer to our web site as the source they used in framing their talks.
The latest Wheel and its' back issues are available on our site.
We provide useful links for Rotarians and other interested parties.
There is a rich resource of Rotary related pictures for members who are preparing PowerPoint presentations (e.g. The President's Parties).
Individual Rotary projects have been given their own pages.
Our upcoming speakers' list is researched so that members are able to come to meetings with a better understanding of the topics being discussed.
Our recent and long past meetings are indexed on our site giving us a sense of our accomplishments.
Our travelling or sick members can stay in contact with us through meeting pictures and talk summaries.
On-line audio and visual talks by members can be made available in a timely fashion.
Our Exchange students' pictures regularly appear so that their parents can be reassured that they are being properly taken care of.
What better way to understand the projects we support than through a posted on-line PowerPoint presentation.
Potential visitors to our club or a nearby one have their own reference page on our site. If you want to see how many visits our site receives each week and just where our visitors come from, just look at the bottom of our pages and go through the viewing statistics.

On the flip side, there is a heavy workload attached to the proper maintenance of a web site. And web sites have a natural tendency to grow over time with correspondingly increasing demands on web committee members.
At times, it becomes very difficult to keep all of the pages on a site "fresh" because of outside demands on the webmaster's service commitment or the unavailability of the updating material. Then too, expectations by individuals on page design code work can become unreasonable.
Political issues often intervene as decisions must be made on what should appear on the web site. This is why web committees are necessary.

Your Webmaster has been appointed the Club's CLUB INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER. This position carries a responsibility for keeping the Club up to date on Internet developments.



The Web site Committee was born during the Summer of 1997 and it launched the first version of a Rotary (1918) home page in early Fall of 1997. There was a six month period of Internet research and wide ranging discussions among an interested group of club members that preceded the presentation of the idea of a Web site to the Board.
After listening to reasons about why a Web site should be considered, who the audience would be and how they would use the site, the Board tentatively approved the project asking the development team for a sample mandate for a Web site Committee and a suggested budget for the project.
After an online viewing of a proposed set of Rotary (1918) pages and a live demonstration before a meeting of Committee Chairpersons, formal approval to proceed with the project was given.

Every web site tells a story and has a mission.
The web is an ever changing field of information.
Development of a Rotary web site needs thoughtful planning, continuous formal Club approval of content direction and careful consideration as to who will oversee and maintain the site and how the site is to be integrated into the regular Club activity stream. Fortunately, there are many sources of advice, support and inspiration available through the Net.

Web site Committee Activities

The Web site committee meets on a regular basis on every 2nd Thursday of the month, (excepting June, July, August and September,) at 8:00am in the lunch room of the Cadillac Motel on Dougal Road.
New members or visitors are welcome to attend the meetings. You don't need to be a computer nerd, just have some enthusiasm for the Internet. The Committee is looking for volunteers who would like to assist us in developing the site, or visitors who would just like to participate in discussions. It is a great place to learn a little about computers or web page design.

Use of digital photographs

We have close to 10,000 digital photos on our site. These photos provide an historical record of club activities.

Reference Material



WEBSITE COMMITTEE MEMBERS


The Committee operates under the Public Relations Division

CHAIR: Gary Champ (Interim Web site Administrator)


VICE CHAIR: Mike Serafimovski (Assistant Webmaster and Club Photographer)



Web site Committee Photography Page Back Arrow Home Page Back Arrow Communications Committee




Last Revised: December 16, 2011