Current Meeting Agenda

The current meeting agenda is here:
Posts below this are saved copies of the agenda after various meetings, so we can look back in time.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Web Team Meeting 6/1/09

Results from previous meetings are highlighted. We will also want to highlight new items to pay attention to. We can add to this over time. The plan is to move things off this list as we address them, so that this will always be the current agenda (so the link doesn't change). Jeff's updates look like this. Charlie, thanks for setting up the Agenda this way.

This agenda is stored online at http://docs.google.com/ViewDoc?docid=dhc342g_15d5jdf79c . Previous agenda lists should be on the Web Team Blog .

New business discussion items--stuff to talk about or figure out:
  1. Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc--we need a presence and may want to link to them. We decided this would be good to pursue, but have questions.

    • How can we use these kinds of sites for ministry?

    • What kind of experience can we provide through them?

    • Who can administer our pages on these sites and do periodic maintenance? I had put several young people in as administrators, perhaps they can help.

    • Do we continue to let everyone in? What does that mean for what content we provide?

    • How about posting our announcements on Facebook
      • Ministry notes
      • Worship notes
      • Calendar stuff (we have fallen behind on posting bulletins--it sounds like people do use them). Jeff needs to review the posting process with Kelli so it can happen each week when she produces the bulletin.
  2. Upcoming Events--do we want to mention Teacher/Coach/Instructor appreciation Sunday on the web site? It would let those teachers we just invited know that they're on the right site. We did have it on the web site, and in the Family Tree News email newsletter.
  3. Logo from Earthbound--we finally have a color logo we can resize.
    • Blank space--the logo has a lot of blank space around it so takes lots of memory to render. If anyone has software that can edit a PDF in vector mode, maybe they can remove the white space. Nobody does, so we have what we have.
    • Web upload--The logo has been uploaded to the web site as a PDF file. I haven't bothered to make GIF or JPG files out of it, because they'd be the same as the ones we already have (just easier to make).
    • We only have a stacked version--we haven't used the side by side version on anything that Earthbound printed for us, so they don't have that one--they could probably make one but the alignment would be tricky and since they're working for free I don't want to push them.
    • Please delete or mark as "bad" any previous color logos that are vectors that can be resized (usually EPS or PDF). This is the only one we have that's correct. The old ones have the incorrect cross and flame so could cause a copyright issue with the United Methodist Church.
  4. Marketing via the web site--how can we make the site appeal more to people who just found us and want to learn more? Do we need more information? More columns? Less fluff? No, we need to have less in the drop downs. Our web page is not bad, we need to work on content, and have lots of people work on it. Can we wiki it? Add a blog, wiki and migrate?
  5. What if people could log in on our web site with their facebook login? Or OpenID? See https://rpxnow.com/ which is designed for exactly this. Not sure if it will work with our site--seems unlikely. Check dotnetnuke?
  6. One of the templates the quality goes down when changing from PPT to PDF. It's a gif file that's degrading. Jeff could look at office 2007. Randy to send it to me.
  7. Brochures--Randy was working on some, and Jeff emailed some recently. Do we want to put templates on the web site? Which? Added a page for Templates under the Logos page. Put a 'Simple Upload' module on it, which says "Valid File Types Include ( *. swf, *.jpg, *.jpeg, *.jpe, *.gif, *.bmp, *.png, *.doc, *.xls, *.ppt, *.pdf, *.txt, *.xml, *.xsl, *.css, *.zip, *.ico )."

  8. Double check the office address on the web site--change the address or eliminate it (from 2355 to 6350 Jupiter Suite 103, Belmont, MI 49306). It has been updated to the 6350 Jupiter address. Given the rapid pace of change and the likelihood of more changes July 1, should we remove the office address from the web site? What do people think?

  9. We have the "Worship at the Y" artwork from Earthbound--do we want to (can we) put that on one or the other web site? Add colors and make it available on the logo page?
  10. We are listed in the Find-a-Church for 49306 (Belmont), 49321 (Comstock Park), 49317 (Cannonsburg). I updated our office address and removed the obsolete fax (Jeff; 6/1/09). Do we want to link to them? It would be another external link that I don't think we need (Jeff). Does their page have a link to us? Yes, under each zip code. Can we put our logo on their page? Yes, there is an option to add a church picture.
  11. Review calendar:
    • The Marketing Team calendar is currently in the strategic planning page--keep it there or move elsewhere?
    • Near the end of the year, decide whether to use Google calendar or stay with mychurchevents for our main calendar. How is the printed calendar each month done if any? We don't do a hardcopy calendar any more because it was a lot of work in publisher. Hardcopy is something to check on with Google. Events at other locations get links--like other churches or the Williams home get maps or links.
      • Google calendar--embed in our own site, copy events among multiple calendars, easy to edit, free
      • Mychurchevents--customizable with little images, event descriptions can have html
  12. White Pines office desktop machine
    • Thunderbird lost all settings and email accounts, tried reboot
    • Saving things is slow and they don't always save in MS Word.
    • Printer buttons are not responsive
    • How recently has a backup on the desktop machine been done? Unknown. The external drive is in Jeff's office.
  13. Check the Meijer Rewards information
    • Our address appears to be wrong, should be the PO Box
    • Did we get the most recent check ok? Yes
    • Check dollars before kids go to camp if necessary
  14. Audio editing and posting the sermons (ftp to ftp://wpines04umc:newkirk12@ftp.whitepinesumc.org/Portals/0/Sermons/ worked at one time, but not tested recently)
    • Need to get the sound files from Mike
    • Jeff needs to get up to speed on audacity. He has the software, and a good set of headphones and microphone.
    • Need a better way to present the files, currently they have to be downloaded and it would be nice to have them play immediately in the browser.
    • How do we use Adobe FlashPlayer 10? CrossWind Community Church Sermons work this way. We looked at the web site, it just downloads a .swf file.
  15. Google adsense--I signed up, waiting to hear on application.
  16. Set next meeting date (normally the first Monday of the month, 7pm at the church office).

Old business discussion items:
  1. Home page--check on plans:
    • Mention the Y earlier in the home page and/or link to it
      We want to move the addresses around on the home page. Patsy got this done!
    • Pictures on the home page--we need a few near the announcements.
    • Put some of our buzzwords out there
      • Worship at the Y
      • Spirit-Mind-Body Connection (We are the Spirit Connection at the Y)
      • Faith and Fitness
        Jeff to write up something to go on the home page about Worshiping at the Y.
  2. Logos on web page--we have the transparent trees and the WorshipAtTheY PDF, still need the black logo. What else do we need if any?
  3. Templates on web page--what do we need, and how can we get it?
    • Word -- Patsy has one.
    • Powerpoint -- Randy has one
    • Publisher -- Patsy has one.
      What other types?
    • Banners--may not need templates for these. Signarama should have our artwork.
    • Road side sign still needed--to marketing
    • Posters -- Randy has some templates for these
    • Communication cards? They are in Excel. We should put an Excel template up with the logo. We should put these on green paper next time.
    • Thank you cards with our logo on the front, duplexed with the logo upside down. We may need an upside down logo. This will probably be in Word.
      What other formats?
  4. What to get rid of--revisit what pages on the web site should be archived to clean things up. Make a quick list of these for someone to work on later.
    The ministries drop down menu is way too big, and there are plenty of outdated things there. Jeff would like about 5 items under a heading.
  5. What to put back--go through the archived pages that are invisible and determine what should be made visible as past items. The rocketry page does a good job of looking back, but most other stuff only looks forward. There may be other things we want to look back on, that don't even have archived items or pictures--we might want a separate page for things like
    • Children's Musical pictures
    • Description and pictures for Shamrock Cookie Bake, Devos Children's Hospital
    • Mention of things the youth groups do every year, like parent appreciation dinner, progressive dinner, GVSU visit, retreats
    • Music Festival (?)
  6. Figure out what to do with the different groups and how to promote them. Do we want to keep a list of these groups? Do we want to put links to them on the web site? Jeff wants to note them in an upcoming Family Tree News. We may want a list, with URL, description, and admin information. So far we have
    • multiple google groups--with ministry team sections
      • Need to list these
    • at least one yahoo group--they have an address book now.
    • a group on facebook
    • cafe press--any progress on getting our stuff back up after they took it down because of the Y logo? Yes, with letter Y.
    • several smileboxes
    • probably other photo sites (picasa?)
    • Google's blog on blogger.com, which ties the URL whitepinesumc.blogspot.com to my gmail account. That might be a bad thing since we might want Pastor Jeff or someone to post to it. I recently posted to it, and am currently using it as a personal blog about White Pines stuff.
    • Jeff's blog Jeff has a blogger.com blog of his own, and he has copied the blog on the whitepinesumc.org site to it so it's in both places. Do we have a link to the blogger.com one and does it have our logo?
  7. SEO--we had talked about having Ryan Duba speak more to us about search engine optimization and about his services, but haven't done that yet. He charges $215 a year(?), which we may be unwilling to spend for little gain.
  8. More jobs to do--some things that may be available for someone to work on include:
    • video recording, editing if any
    • photo editing/archiving--Patsy does a lot of this but there are folks who haven't given her their pictures
    For some of these, if we try to store everything online, we find we run out of space.
  9. Video and other information from the news coverage of Faith and Fitness--can we save it or link to it? Can we post the article, perhaps on a Faith and Fitness page?
  10. Combine video testimonials onto single DVD for promotional purposes, i.e. East Nelson financial request; they are currently on 3 DVDs.
  11. Jeff still struggles with putting pictures inline for Family Tree News...HELP. (It looks like he figured it out--the 3/23/09 FTN is fine.)
  12. Google group WPUMC-CONNECTIONS, possibly coordinate with Family Tree News. Using a google group for news could make a list of the previous posts automatic, but might make things more complicated as far as posting old news and managing the mailing list. We have no idea what would happen if we tried to send a message with images to a google group so this might be something to test. Facebook group might also be good to look at since we have more Facebook users than google users.

Action items--stuff to work on:
  1. Jeff's Family Tree News Digest page might need a way to comment, or an RSS feed. See above discussion of using a google group for it.
  2. Eliminate the telephone2 column from the contacts (or use it) if possible
  3. Need 6 master logos--colored side by side, colored tree logo over, and tree only (versions--black and white, white background, and transparent background)--not done yet, though we have the black and white ones (and the tree only--the color is a bit too light on it). Jeff will talk to the sign company when we order the new signs, so on hold until then.
  4. Need smaller versions of these logos, with multiple colors, that can be sized smaller for the web site (on hold as above).
  5. Calendar logo not working - look into changing the logo size and possibly changing our web hosting for the logo, images work best if they are on a white background and are no larger than 200 pixels wide and 110 pixels high--on hold until we get hosting that can supply the logo. Found a setting in the webhost4life control panel that they added--security > security guard > level strong > set to medium--by default it doesn't allow us to set up new users, and also prevents linking to our images. So in theory this should be fixed.
  6. Also for logos, make up a special login that can only see the logo page, to be used by vendors such as Earthbound. Or else make a portion of the page publicly available.
  7. Revamp the directory page
    1. Make the directory info easier to find
    2. Move the pictures to another page?
    3. Move the leadership info to another page?
  8. Update the online directory by doing a periodic export from MemberShip Plus--ongoing, updated 10/13/08. Since MembershipPlus is used for financials, addresses must be correct there. Thunderbird is used for email, and Jeff's Palm for telephone contacts.
  9. Clean up Thunderbird on office desktop--ongoing
  10. Need to make sure work email addresses are out of MembershipPlus and Thunderbird. We probably need to keep a list of them (like a do not call list) since they keep creeping back in.
  11. Check web site for other problems, there are lots.
  12. Google group--Patsy set one up, Charlie needs to confirm his ID. :)
  13. Add more links to quick links, test web site without javascript.
  14. Many updates to brochures, fliers, and other advertising material--ongoing.
  15. Check on mobile version of web site, see swerve.lifechurch.tv (the old version of dotnetnuke had a way to make some modules not show up on mobile devices, not sure if the new one does--any announcements about worship cancellation due to weather should certainly show up!)
  16. Make it possible to click for directions using the map on the web page, perhaps by replacing it with an embedded google map in an iframe (note that not all browsers support iframes, javascript, etc.)
  17. Hide the Weekly Worship Leaders and Support Teams page.
  18. Clean up/archive unused links and pages on the web site.
  19. Put a copy of the peanut allergy information that includes the name and a printable copy of the original document in the subscribers area of the web site.
  20. Check the web site for new registrations.
  21. Move addresses around on the home page--worship site at the Y first and centered.
  22. Add the Y to the quick links so it's on every page on our site.
  23. Need the resizable black tree on the logo page.
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Monday, May 4, 2009

Web Team Meeting 5/4/09

Results from previous meetings are highlighted. We will need to highlight new items since the last meeting too. We can add to this over time. The plan is to move things off this list as we address them, so that this will always be the current agenda (so the link doesn't change). Jeff's updates look like this. Charlie, thanks for setting up the Agenda this way.

This agenda is stored online at http://docs.google.com/ViewDoc?docid=dhc342g_15d5jdf79c . Previous agenda lists should be on the Web Team Blog .

New business discussion items--stuff to talk about or figure out:
  1. Brochures--Randy was working on some, and Jeff emailed some recently. Do we want to put templates on the web site? Which? We didn't address this yet.

  2. Logo--questions came up again recently on the color logo (or lack of). We don't have a color logo that we can easily change the size of. We have to be very careful not to ever distribute the wrong logo, because we could get in trouble with the United Methodist Church for doing it wrong (and we could waste money printing signs that are wrong.) The only thing to do right now is to give Ryan or the sign company the black and white logo and the PMS numbers as we have done in the past. As far as getting a color logo, we are waiting on the sign company for that and it is on the todo list way far down at the bottom of this document. Another possibility would be to farm it out to someone else or beg someone to do it (Perhaps Earthbound Screen Printing? I'll try to ask them when I'm in there.).

  3. Address on the mychurchevents calendar--change the address or eliminate it (from 2355 to 6350 Jupiter Suite 103, Belmont, MI 49306) Done for the calendar, but oops, it needs to be changed on the web site too!.
  4. Pictures on the home page--we need a few near the announcements.
  5. Web site colors--Do we want to change anything else in the color scheme? Nope, they're fine, other than the font size problem.--Removed this from the agenda due to lack of current interest even though there is still a minor font size problem.
    We don't have to manually put in color and font on the web site any more--after hours of struggle, I found the CSS settings for the web site, and changed:
    • Default link color to dark green as we discussed last meeting
    • Default link setting to have an underline
    • Default text size to be 12px (our size 2) instead of 11px (our size 3). This is working for links, but might not be working quite right for text--more testing needed.
    • Default heading color to be dark green as well
    • Default font to be Ariel
    The CSS file is at /Portals/_default/default.css which so far can only be edited by using ftp to move the file to another machine. The main reason for having this information here is so it will be documented in the meeting agenda.
    For the styles:
    • We can pick styles while editing, which we may need to learn more about. One of the announcements on the web site right now uses a style.
    • We have some old junk to take out to make styles work.
  6. Web site format--I tried to link to the web site for the Blandford Nature Center recently, after we took some kids from church there on a Sunday afternoon. You can't even find their site under all the announcements that are at the top of their home page! I finally decided not to link to them. Our site has the same problem. If someone tries to link to us hoping to tell someone what White Pines is about, they get blurbs about news reporters, Relay for Life, and Shamrock Cookie Bake (which is already past, so I took it out). I'm concerned that the message this gives to site visitors is that the site is primarily about communicating with existing members. If this is what we want, that's ok. But in this time when we're working hard to get new visitors to both White Pines and CHAOS, we may not want to make people wade through stuff they don't care about, at least not without some indication of what's going on. A lot of stuff will go away after Easter. Perhaps we can move the map up toward the top More columns may be the answer.
  7. WorshipAtTheY.org now exists. It is hosted on godaddy.com using their free hosting, with a redirect to google sites. Unfortunately Google's hosting isn't that great--the site editor is limited (but better than anything except dotnetnuke that I've seen, though I don't know much about Wordpress or Drupal yet) and they put a banner along the bottom of the page that varies in location depending on what browser you're using. If you want a google account and email address yourname@worshipatthey.org let me know. So far I just set up a couple to see how it works. They have added the new features to our site, fixing some of the problems. For the calendar, we added a marketing@worshipatthey.org user, and shared it with everyone--new users can add it without the owner doing anything, but they have to add it specifically, and it can be shared individually as well so people don't have to add it specifically, but it's not automatic as it should be.
  8. Blog stuff--Removed this from the agenda due to lack of current interest.
    • Would we want a blog multiple people could post to? Google may have one available with blogspot and it might work with worshipatthey.org.
    • Would more people read "Jeff Williams blog" than "Pastor Jeff's blog"?
  9. Google apps is set up for the worshipatthey.org domain, which means we can have email addresses in that domain and can use other google apps. It's set up somewhat the way I believe Ryan sets up things for his customers. It could be useful for us to be set up like a company, if we spend the needed time on it, which we probably won't. It lets you log into multiple google accounts at the same time as long as they are in separate domains, which is nice.--Removed this from the agenda due to lack of current interest.
  10. We have the Worship at the Y artwork from Earthbound--do we want to (can we) put that on one or the other web site? Add colors and make it available on the logo page?
  11. More jobs to do--some things that may be available for someone to work on include:
    • audio editing and posting the sermons (ftp to ftp://wpines04umc:newkirk12@ftp.whitepinesumc.org/Portals/0/Sermons/ worked at one time, but not tested recently)
    • video recording, editing if any
    • photo editing/archiving--Patsy does a lot of this but there are folks who haven't given her their pictures
    For some of these, if we try to store everything online, we find we run out of space.
  12. Video and other information from the news coverage of Faith and Fitness--can we save it or link to it? Can we post the article, perhaps on a Faith and Fitness page?
  13. Combine video testimonials onto single DVD for promotional purposes, i.e. East Nelson financial request; they are currently on 3 DVDs.
  14. Jeff still struggles with putting pictures inline for Family Tree News...HELP. (It looks like he figured it out--the 3/23/09 FTN is fine.)
  15. Google group WPUMC-CONNECTIONS, possibly coordinate with Family Tree News. Using a google group for news could make a list of the previous posts automatic, but might make things more complicated as far as posting old news and managing the mailing list. We have no idea what would happen if we tried to send a message with images to a google group so this might be something to test.
  16. We are listed in the Find-a-Church for 49306 (Belmont), 49321 (Comstock Park), 49317 (Cannonsburg). Do we want to link to them? Does their page have a link to us? Can we put our logo on their page?
  17. How recently has a backup on the desktop machine been done?
  18. Review calendar:
    • The Marketing Team calendar is currently in the strategic planning page--keep it there or move elsewhere?
    • Near the end of the year, decide whether to use Google calendar or stay with mychurchevents for our main calendar
      • Google calendar--embed in our own site, copy events among multiple calendars, easy to edit, free
      • Mychurchevents--customizable with little images, event descriptions can have html
  19. Set next meeting date (normally the first Monday of the month, 7pm at the church office).

Old business discussion items:
  1. Home page--check on plans from last meeting:
    • Mention the Y earlier in the home page and/or link to it
      We want to move the addresses around on the home page. Patsy got this done!
    • Put some of our buzzwords out there
      • Worship at the Y
      • Spirit-Mind-Body Connection (We are the Spirit Connection at the Y)
      • Faith and Fitness
        Jeff to write up something to go on the home page about Worshiping at the Y.
  2. Logos on web page--we have the transparent trees and the WorshipAtTheY PDF, still need the black logo. What else do we need if any?
  3. Templates on web page--what do we need, and how can we get it?
    • Word -- Patsy has one.
    • Powerpoint -- Randy has one
    • Publisher -- Patsy has one.
      What other types?
    • Banners--may not need templates for these. Signarama should have our artwork.
    • Road side sign still needed--to marketing
    • Posters -- Randy has some templates for these
    • Communication cards? They are in Excel. We should put an Excel template up with the logo. We should put these on green paper next time.
    • Thank you cards with our logo on the front, duplexed with the logo upside down. We may need an upside down logo. This will probably be in Word.
      What other formats?
  4. What to get rid of--revisit what pages on the web site should be archived to clean things up. Make a quick list of these for someone to work on later.
    The ministries drop down menu is way too big, and there are plenty of outdated things there. Jeff would like about 5 items under a heading.
  5. What to put back--go through the archived pages that are invisible and determine what should be made visible as past items. The rocketry page does a good job of looking back, but most other stuff only looks forward. There may be other things we want to look back on, that don't even have archived items or pictures--we might want a separate page for things like
    • Children's Musical pictures
    • Description and pictures for Shamrock Cookie Bake, Devos Children's Hospital
    • Mention of things the youth groups do every year, like parent appreciation dinner, progressive dinner, GVSU visit, retreats
    • Music Festival (?)
  6. Figure out what to do with the different groups and how to promote them. Do we want to keep a list of these groups? Do we want to put links to them on the web site? Jeff wants to note them in an upcoming Family Tree News. We may want a list, with URL, description, and admin information. So far we have
    • multiple google groups--with ministry team sections
      • Need to list these
    • at least one yahoo group--they have an address book now.
    • a group on facebook
    • cafe press--any progress on getting our stuff back up after they took it down because of the Y logo? Yes, with letter Y.
    • several smileboxes
    • probably other photo sites (picasa?)
    • Google's blog on blogger.com, which ties the URL whitepinesumc.blogspot.com to my gmail account. That might be a bad thing since we might want Pastor Jeff or someone to post to it. I recently posted to it, and am currently using it as a personal blog about White Pines stuff.
    • Jeff's blog Jeff has a blogger.com blog of his own, and he has copied the blog on the whitepinesumc.org site to it so it's in both places. Do we have a link to the blogger.com one and does it have our logo?
  7. SEO--we had talked about having Ryan Duba speak more to us about search engine optimization and about his services, but haven't done that yet. He charges $215 a year(?), which we may be unwilling to spend for little gain.

Action items--stuff to work on:
  1. Jeff's Family Tree News Digest page might need a way to comment, or an RSS feed. See above discussion of using a google group for it.
  2. Eliminate the telephone2 column from the contacts (or use it) if possible
  3. Need 6 master logos--colored side by side, colored tree logo over, and tree only (versions--black and white, white background, and transparent background)--not done yet, though we have the black and white ones (and the tree only--the color is a bit too light on it). Jeff will talk to the sign company when we order the new signs, so on hold until then.
  4. Need smaller versions of these logos, with multiple colors, that can be sized smaller for the web site (on hold as above).
  5. Calendar logo not working - look into changing the logo size and possibly changing our web hosting for the logo, images work best if they are on a white background and are no larger than 200 pixels wide and 110 pixels high--on hold until we get hosting that can supply the logo. Found a setting in the webhost4life control panel that they added--security > security guard > level strong > set to medium--by default it doesn't allow us to set up new users, and also prevents linking to our images. So in theory this should be fixed.
  6. Also for logos, make up a special login that can only see the logo page, to be used by vendors such as Earthbound. Or else make a portion of the page publicly available.
  7. Revamp the directory page
    1. Make the directory info easier to find
    2. Move the pictures to another page?
    3. Move the leadership info to another page?
  8. Update the online directory by doing a periodic export from MemberShip Plus--ongoing, updated 10/13/08. Since MembershipPlus is used for financials, addresses must be correct there. Thunderbird is used for email, and Jeff's Palm for telephone contacts.
  9. Clean up Thunderbird on office desktop--ongoing
  10. Need to make sure work email addresses are out of MembershipPlus and Thunderbird. We probably need to keep a list of them (like a do not call list) since they keep creeping back in.
  11. Check web site for other problems, there are lots.
  12. Google group--Patsy set one up, Charlie needs to confirm his ID. :)
  13. Add more links to quick links, test web site without javascript.
  14. Many updates to brochures, fliers, and other advertising material--ongoing.
  15. Check on mobile version of web site, see swerve.lifechurch.tv (the old version of dotnetnuke had a way to make some modules not show up on mobile devices, not sure if the new one does--any announcements about worship cancellation due to weather should certainly show up!)
  16. Make it possible to click for directions using the map on the web page, perhaps by replacing it with an embedded google map in an iframe (note that not all browsers support iframes, javascript, etc.)
  17. Hide the Weekly Worship Leaders and Support Teams page.
  18. Check the Meijer Rewards information.
  19. Clean up/archive unused links and pages on the web site.
  20. Put a copy of the peanut allergy information that includes the name and a printable copy of the original document in the subscribers area of the web site.
  21. Check the web site for new registrations.
  22. Move addresses around on the home page--worship site at the Y first and centered.
  23. Add the Y to the quick links so it's on every page on our site.
  24. Need the resizable black tree on the logo page.

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Monday, February 23, 2009

Web Team Meeting 2/23/09

Results from discussion at this and previous meetings are highlighted. These notes are from the 2/23/09 meeting. Jeff's updates look like this. Charlie, thanks for setting up the Agenda this way.

Previous and subsequent meeting information should be on the Web Team Blog .

Discussion items--stuff to talk about or figure out:
  1. Web page appearance
    • Jeff and I found out this week that in some pages the links were blue, in some pages they were green, sometimes they were bold faced and sometimes not. Currently I have some of the links in blue and underlined, which is default for the web--do we want to change to that? It looks bad, but it's better for communication. Can we change our CSS so this kind of thing happens automatically?
      We picked text which is dark green
    • Questions about font size also came up this week--we picked size 2
  2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) questions--do we want to sign up with Ryan Duba's Rockford Network?
    It's all about content. We will have Ryan speak at a marketing or web team meeting.
  3. Discuss T shirts for the April 11 Easter Egg hunt. I know this isn't a web team thing, but it's driving me nuts. How about

    • Yellow, since it's a pastel type color that's not too offensive, use orange, yellow, and blue. 12 Small orange, 6 medium yellow, 6 large blue.

    • Everything on one side of the shirt, in a single color--saves money. If we want, we could get the same thing on the back too (or our old White Pines screen) for about $2 more per shirt. Or we could get different stuff on each side which would be another $15 charge for the screen.
    • Don't want T shirts nobody can see because there are coats over them. If we can get sweatshirts (near) the same color do we want to offer them?
    • Youth sizes of sweatshirts may come from a different company so the color may be slightly different.
    • Where does the money come from? Do we want to order a few extra to give to the Y people who do Faith and Fitness?
  4. Home page--do we want to
    • Mention the Y earlier in the home page and/or link to it
      We want to move the addresses around on the home page
    • Put some of our buzzwords out there
      • Worship at the Y
      • Spirit-Mind-Body Connection (We are the Spirit Connection at the Y)
      • Faith and Fitness
        Jeff to write up something to go on the home page.
  5. Logos on web page--what else do we need? (Sorry for my rant on the logo page, but I get really tired of explaining this stuff--let me know if anything there is inaccurate.)
    Need the black logo--added to the todo list. Also need transparent trees.
  6. Templates on web page--what do we need, and how can we get it?
    • Word -- Patsy has one.
    • Powerpoint -- Randy has one
    • Publisher -- Patsy has one.
      What other types?
    • Banners--may not need templates for these. Signarama should have our artwork.
    • Road side sign still needed--to marketing
    • Posters -- Randy has some templates for these
    • Communication cards? They are in Excel. We should put an Excel template up with the logo. We should put these on green paper next time.
    • Thank you cards with our logo on the front, duplexed with the logo upside down. We may need an upside down logo. This will probably be in Word.
      What other formats?
  7. What to get rid of--revisit what pages on the web site should be archived to clean things up. Make a quick list of these for someone to work on later.
    The ministries drop down menu is way too big, and there are plenty of outdated things there. Jeff would like about 5 items under a heading.
  8. What to put back--go through the archived pages that are invisible and determine what should be made visible as past items. The rocketry page does a good job of looking back, but most other stuff only looks forward. There may be other things we want to look back on, that don't even have archived items or pictures--we might want a separate page for things like
    • Children's Musical pictures
    • Description and pictures for Shamrock Cookie Bake Devos Children's Hospital
    • Music Festival (?)
  9. Sermon links--these are out of date, does anyone know if Mike is going to start uploading them again? See separate email. Willing to record, someone needs to edit the mp3 and post it. Maybe we should be doing video. swerve.lifechurch.tv does video of the sermon Saturday night, and puts it on the screen Sunday morning in multiple buildings.
  10. Figure out what to do with the different groups and how to promote them. Do we want to keep a list of these groups? Do we want to put links to them on the web site? Jeff wants to note them in an upcoming Family Tree News. So far we have
    • multiple google groups--with ministry team sections
    • at least one yahoo group--they have an address book now.
    • a group on facebook
    • cafe press--any progress on getting our stuff back up after they took it down because of the Y logo? Yes, with Y.
    • several smileboxes
    • probably other photo sites
    • Google's blog on blogger.com, which ties the URL whitepinesumc.blogspot.com to my gmail account. That might be a bad thing since we might want Pastor Jeff or someone to post to it. I recently posted to it, and am currently using it as a personal blog about White Pines stuff.
    • Jeff's blog Jeff has a blogger.com blog of his own, and he has copied the blog on the whitepinesumc.org site to it so it's in both places.
  11. Discuss the role of laptop operator and use of laptop/projector in worship (ongoing discussion).
    • It wasn't working this past week in the 9:30 service. Jeff and Mike did not get the remote connected and working before worship. He did use it the second service. Jeff is finding preparation time on Sunday morning more complicated with setting up the WP laptop & projector in the gym for Sunday School and other final set up details.
    • A separate laptop and projector are used for Sunday school--there the picture is narrow and I can't remember what we did last week to fix it. Perhaps do a factory reset?
  12. Set next meeting--we want to wait until next month, April 6 which is during spring break.

Action items--stuff to work on:
  1. Jeff's Family Tree News Digest page needs a few more entries posted. I posted 2/23 and 2/2. We may want to get fancy and do it as a blog or something else that has an RSS feed attached.
  2. Eliminate the telephone2 column from the contacts (or use it) if possible
  3. Need 6 master logos--colored side by side, colored tree logo over, and tree only (versions--black and white, white background, and transparent background)--not done yet, though we have the black and white ones. Jeff will talk to the sign company when we order the new signs so on hold until then.
  4. Need smaller versions of these logos, with multiple colors, that can be sized smaller for the web site (on hold as above).
  5. Calendar logo not working - look into changing the logo size and possibly changing our web hosting for the logo, images work best if they are on a white background and are no larger than 200 pixels wide and 110 pixels high--on hold until we get hosting that can supply the logo.
  6. Also for logos, make up a special log in that can only see the logo, to be used by vendors such as Earthbound. Or else make a portion of the page publicly available.
  7. Revamp the directory page
    1. Make the directory info easier to find
    2. Move the pictures to another page?
    3. Move the leadership info to another page?
  8. Update the online directory--ongoing, updated 10/13/08
  9. Clean up Thunderbird on office desktop--ongoing
  10. Need to make sure work email addresses are out of MembershipPlus and Thunderbird. We probably need to keep a list of them (like a do not call list) since they keep creeping back in.
  11. Check web site for other problems, there are lots. Flashing link behavior on the lower portion of the Worship Themes & Bulletins page in Thunderbird. Fixed.
  12. Google group--Patsy set one up, Charlie needs to confirm his ID. :)
  13. Add more links to quick links, test web site without javascript.
  14. Many updates to brochures, fliers, and other advertising material--ongoing.
  15. Check on mobile version of web site, see swerve.lifechurch.tv (the old version of dotnetnuke had a way to make some modules not show up on mobile devices, not sure if the new one does--any announcements about worship cancellation due to weather should certainly show up!)
  16. Make it possible to click for directions using the map on the web page, perhaps by replacing it with an embedded google map in an iframe (note that not all browsers support iframes, javascript, etc.)
  17. Hide the Weekly Worship Leaders and Support Teams page.
  18. Check the Meijer Rewards information.
  19. Clean up/archive unused links and pages on the web site.
  20. Put a copy of the peanut allergy information that includes the name and a printable copy of the original document in the subscribers area of the web site.
  21. Check the web site for new registrations.
  22. Move addresses around on the home page--worship site at the Y first and centered.
  23. Add the Y to the quick links so it's on every page on our site.
  24. See if worshipattheY.org is available.
  25. Need the resizable black tree on the logo page.

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Monday, January 5, 2009

Web Team Meeting 1/5/2008

Notes from the first meeting of the year on 1/5/09 (results are highlighted):




Discussion items--stuff to talk about or figure out: 


  1. How to move links to the links archive?

    Found they have to be manually copied.  Pages and modules can be moved, and announcements can be manually copied pretty easily, but links have to be handled manually.  The only exception is copying the whole links module, which we haven't tried.


  2. Rocketry pictures on facebook--there is a White Pines UMC facebook page, Mike Halifax and I are admins for it (and Amanda Williams--I'm hoping she'll post a profile picture). In looking for pictures to post to it, all I really found handy were rocketry ones so I posted some of those. Is that ok?

    Yes, it's fine--these are all pictures we took so there are no copyright issues, etc.


  3. The CHAOS group asked for a way to count people hitting individual web pages, especially the main CHAOS page. The logging isn't working (I opened a support ticket with webhost4life to try to get them to fix it, but no luck so far). What other options do we have?

    The webhost4life folks did a restore and got this working.  The CHAOS page is high on the hit count list, but then Patsy has been updating it a lot.


  4. Donation link on the web page--Jeff may look at doing this through vanco services (update--they're expensive, how about Paypal? Do we still want to do this?).

    Paypal also charges for business accounts.  We don't want to do anything that has a cost associated with it.


  5. Decide what pages on the web site can be archived to clean things up. We had planned to check page visit counts, but that's not working right now.

    The page visit counts are working again now.  For the last few days, which is all we have, the CHAOS page, the Home Page, and the sermon page are the top pages.  Patsy plans to move some of the links to clean things up.


  6. Revise Weekly Worship Leaders and Support Teams web form was on the agenda before--what needs to be done with this?

    It's no longer used, as we have reduced the number of people serving and standardized the schedule, let's hide it for now.


  7. Discuss the role of laptop operator and use of laptop/projector in worship (ongoing discussion).


  8. Figure a way to store and share photos--google group? Snapfish now has something called group rooms, has anyone tried it yet? How are we (mostly Patsy) dealing with the problem now? Picasa has a 1Gb(?) limit. Most sites without limits have no security. Any ideas? How many Gb of images do we have now?  

    A number of different people have stacks of CDs.  Smilebox movies are useful.  We didn't find any other (cheap) solution.


  9. Figure out what to do with the different groups and how to promote them. So far we have multiple google groups, at least one yahoo group, a group on facebook, and probably some stuff on photo sites and cafe press. I just created a blog on Google's blogger.com, which ties the URL whitepinesumc.blogspot.com to my name and probably means only I can post to it. That might be a bad thing since we might want Pastor Jeff or someone to post to it. Do we want to keep a list of these groups? Do we want to put links to them on the web site?  Jeff has a blogger.com blog of his own, and he has copied the blog on the whitepinesumc.org site to it so it's in both places.  Other items from this deferred to next meeting.



  10. Set next meeting--we had moved to the second Monday of the month since the praise team wanted to rehearse music on the first Monday, unfortunately there are conflicts with the second Monday too.  Next month things will be different because there probably won't be room in the new Welcome Center for the Praise Team to rehearse.

    We will try for the first Monday next month again.


Action items--stuff to work on:



  1. Fix all the web pages that turned orange.

    Done.


  2. Update our worship time/location on the UMC web site--Jeff is working on this

    Checked umc.org, it's fine.  It would be nice to include another zip code.



  3. Put our mailing address in the contacts on the web page. Perhaps the PO box should be used--Jeff working on this.

    Done.


  4. Put a copy of the peanut allergy information that includes the name and a printable copy of the original document in the subscribers area of the web site.


  5. Eliminate the telephone2 column from the contacts (or use it) if possible


  6. Need 6 master logos--colored side by side, colored tree logo over, and tree only (versions--black and white, white background, and transparent background)--not done yet, though we have the black and white ones. Jeff will talk to the sign company when we order the new signs so on hold until then.


  7. Need smaller versions of these logos, with multiple colors, that can be sized smaller for the web site (on hold as above).


  8. Calendar logo not working - look into changing the logo size and possibly changing our web hosting for the logo, images work best if they are on a white background and are no larger than 200 pixels wide and 110 pixels high--on hold until we get hosting that can supply the logo.


  9. Revamp the directory page


    1. Make the directory info easier to find


    2. Move the pictures to another page?


    3. Move the leadership info to another page?




  10. Update the online directory--ongoing, updated 10/13/08


  11. Clean up Thunderbird on Welcome Center desktop--ongoing


  12. Need to make sure work email addresses are out of MembershipPlus and Thunderbird. We probably need to keep a list of them (like a do not call list) since they keep creeping back in.


  13. Check web site for other problems, there are lots


  14. Google group--Patsy set one up, Charlie needs to confirm his ID. :)


  15. Add more links to quick links, test web site without javascript.


  16. Many updates to brochures, flyers, and other advertising material--Patsy is doing great on this stuff! Ongoing.


  17. Check on mobile version of web site, see swerve.lifechurch.tv (the old version of dotnetnuke had a way to make some modules not show up on mobile devices, not sure if the new one does--any announcements about worship cancellation due to weather should certainly show up!)



  18. Make it possible to click for directions using the map on the web page, perhaps by replacing it with an embedded google map in an iframe (note that not all browsers support iframes, javascript, etc.)


  19. Hide the Weekly Worship Leaders and Support Teams page.


  20. Check the Meijer Rewards information.


  21. Clean up/archive unused links and pages on the web site.


  22. Test the monitors at the Welcome Center.





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Meeting Date Changed

Because of a change in schedule for other groups using the Welcome Center, we are changing the Web Team meeting from 1/12/09 to 1/5/09. Fortunately I just happened to have the agenda in place a week ahead of time!
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Agenda Information

Posting the Web Team agenda in the calendar for each meeting was nice for a while, but since calendar entries can get deleted, this may work better.
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