New LVCC Website

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  • All,

    An ongoing goal is to keep improving all aspects of the club for the benefit of members and bringing in new members. With this, the website is the next step!

    I'd like to get the ball rolling with this and scope a brief of what the website should be for all of you and what you'd like to see more of. So with that, I have a few questions below that could be great if you could answer and any other points you think are worth raising.

    Thanks,
    Charlie

    What is the core purpose of the club website?

    What websites do you like and why? (Can be other clubs or broader)

    What sort of content do you want to access, see? And why?

  • Hi Charlie,
    A quick question first - it could take months to design a new website, will it be possible to get the photos updated on the current one in the meantime?
    Just some initial thoughts: I think the website would have two purposes for two separate groups of people. One is essentially as an advert for the club and first information point for anyone who is looking to join a club and considering Lea Valley CC. To this end, it needs to look good (with the same rebranding recently carried out to the Facebook page) and needs to have several pages explaining who we are and what we do. There should be at least a page devoted to club runs (typical group sizes, average speeds, ride lengths / routes, expectations in terms of what to bring / how to ride) as this is how many people first encounter the club. The other big thing that brings people to the club is the Tuesday Tens, so it's worth having a whole page devoted to this too. It should also have links to the club Facebook page / tumblr blog / forum (or, ideally, the forum could be incorporated into the website).
    The other group is existing club riders. At the moment we have no reason to use the website at all - all it really does at the moment is point to Facebook etc. It would be useful if it had links / documents / pages that many members are likely to want / need over the course of a year. To give a few examples: the programme of races that we will be putting on during the season, a rosta of marshalling duties, a list of other events we're putting on (including social events), a list of club records, etc.
    More later

  • I agree with Jamie. The website does 2 things. One is an outward facing:

    This is who we are:
    A basic intro into club
    Club Heritage
    Club Committee

    This is what we do:
    Club Runs
    Social
    TT
    Racing
    etc
    A page could be done for each.

    For instance
    Club Runs
    Could have most of the routes we generally do
    It could have a strava widget for LVCC
    It should have a breakdown of what happens on runs, what you can expect, who is welcome, what are the rules and etiquette

    Where:
    Town Hall
    Ugley
    HQ

    Then the website should be for members as an information point:

    Calendar of races - is it possible for people to be able to put their names down so we can see who is doing what?
    Calendar of TT's - I don't know if this info can be taken from elsewhere otherwise a bit of a pain to manually put it in.
    Calendar of other events, marshalling duties etc

    Potentially a club kit shop?

    Forum - I think it would be great if this could be used instead of Facebook, which is incredibly handy but can be really difficult to follow. This shouldn't be difficult and perhaps can be used through an app so makes it easier for people to sue. I guess there is an existing thing that can be used.

    I don't think it will take months. I think as soon as the basics are nailed down and text written it won't take long to build. And to be honest it doesn't need to do everything straight away. We could put the site up with the basics and then add to it.

  • I agree with much of what has been said above.

    FB is useful but has it's limitations. It has , unfortunately, become the main way in which we communicate to members;I know I tend to go to it first. We should reverse that tendency.

    One way of shifting to the forum would be to always include a link to the forum on a FB post.

  • Good sites - Islington - but I am not sure they do all of the things they say they do and it perhaps has too much information.

    Not so good sites - Glendene- rarely updated

    Based on the site's contents I know which club I'd join .

    Websites are less flexible than a forum / FB page so the information on a FB page needs to accurate but not have to be updated weekly.

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New LVCC Website

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