Web Publishing Committee
Advance Report - 2007
The Baltimore Yearly Meeting web site has been structurally stable over the last year. The contents of course have changed over time, but the layout and the format has not been altered.
As designed, the changes have focused on major updates occurring when the Interchange is published. Consequently over the calendar year 2006 we have recomposed the front page of the site for the Spring, Summer and Fall issues of the Interchange. All articles from the Interchange, all Committee reports, all Meeting news notes are accessible from these new pages.
A second on-going effort has been the maintenance of the calendar. There is both a central web page with the current and future events, as well as the 'mini-calendar' which appears as a sidebar on many pages. This last year added events from the Shalem Institute to the calendar, and we are open to adding events from other (especially Quaker) organizations. The calendar is updated sporadically, whenever organizations, committees, or individuals notify us.
Annual Sessions is a busy time for changes to the website as new program information becomes available, new workshops are described, and the advance reports from committees and organizations come rolling in. All these are posted to the web when they become available. In addition the Spiritual State of the Meeting reports which have been added to each meeting's web page were collected into a single PDF document and 50 copies were printed and made available at Annual Sessions.
In addition to our regular maintenance work the following documents were posted to the publications section of the BYM website:
The BYM website excludes maintenance of news and information for the camping program, the Young Friends, and the Adult Young Friends. Ross Bower, a young Friend in Nottingham, has taken over the Young Friend's pages and has done an admirable job. He has even developed a special 'forum' (http://www.yfforum.net/) for young Friends to share news and comments.
Advance Report - 2006
As of February 2005 Baltimore Yearly Meeting gained a new Webmanager, Jim Rose of Patapsco Friends Meeting. Frustrated by the difficulties in navigating the old site, there was a sincere interest in redesigning the entire website. While the old website was difficult, there was already a mine of information that could be made more easily accessible.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's site was chosen as a model of the new strategy. PYM was contacted to determine if they had any concerns about emulating their layout and organization on the web. Not only did they respond positively, but they offered to help with the conversion. Within six weeks the new Baltimore Yearly Meeting site was online.
Three principles underlie the development of BYMs website: first that it be highly linked, providing many ways to access different pages. Secondly that the site be forced to be updated frequently so the information does not get stale. And finally the pages and images need to be kept small so Friends who use dial-up service would not be unduly frustrated. The organization of the PYM website answered to the first principle, and coordinating with the publication of the Interchange provided the grounds for the second.
Each time the Interchange is published, the main BYM webpages undergo a major overhaul: the front page reflects all the articles presented in the Interchange, and committee and meeting reports are added to their respective pages. In this way we are developing an archive of the concerns and activities of both our Monthly Meetings as well as each of our committees. Yearly Meeting staff continue to maintain and to update the camping pages. The pages for the Young Friends, Junior Young Friends and Adult Young Friends pages are also maintained (or not) by others.
We have actively encouraged meetings to build and maintain their own independent websites. As of this writing, thirty of our meetings have a web presence, and only three of those still depend upon the BYM webmanager to provide update assistance. The meeting pages on the BYM site, a collection of reports, minutes and articles from each meeting, should be seen as a supplement to an individual meetings efforts.
A new map of the Monthly Meetings finally became available on the web. The name of the meeting appears as a tip when the user hovers over the location, and when the user clicks, the webpage for that meeting appears. The calendar and mini-calendar (which appears on the right column of most pages) are continuously updated, and linked to information about the event.
While maintenance of the website is continuous, it is still performed by a committee of one. There is certainly opportunity for others to become involved. We are especially looking for young Friends to learn how to develop and maintain websites.
Jim Rose, Webmanager
Annual Report 2004
This year, Baltimore Yearly Meeting has a new Web Site Coordinator,
Allen Briggs, of Blacksburg Meeting. Much work has been done on
the web site this year.
Updating of Monthly Meeting information is done by the Yearly Meeting
staff. This also ensures that the staff knows the latest officers
and times of worship of Monthly Meetings. The Yearly Meeting staff
members also maintain the camping pages and place the Interchange
on-line. Some out of date information has been moved to archival
folders.
This year, the Yearly Meeting made use of an internet utility that
supports camping to allow secure on-line camp registration. By the
time the Yearly Meeting session are held, we will know if this worked
well. The first year of its use saw a 380 campers enroll on-line.
This represented 67 percent of the total number of applicants. Parents
seemed satisfied with the service and appreciated the ability to
apply on-line. The service allows them to use the same account year
after year which makes registering next year even easier. We will
continue to allow people to register using paper to enable every
one to take part in the camping programs.
We could treat the Yearly Meeting Session as a "camping program"
and do on-line registration for it as well, but there is coming
and going from Yearly Meeting, so it is not clear if we can use
the camping utility to do Internet registration for Yearly Meeting
Session. There are some who want to register on-line, so the web
publishing committee, the office staff, the Registrar, and the Program
Committee will continue to work on this project. Again, for those
who want to register using paper, we will continue to receive those
registrations over the foreseeable future. We are working on getting
set up for the fall so that the Women’s Retreat can have a first
go at this and we can work out bugs.
For years, the Web Publishing Subcommittee has had two dreams:
using maps to locate Monthly Meetings, our Camps, Quaker Schools,
Retirement Communities, and other Quaker venues. We would also like
each Monthly Meeting to have a web site; we have the resources to
place a minimal site on-line, much as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
has done. We do not anticipate having the uniform look that PYM
Monthly Meeting sites have, but at some point a gathering of Monthly
Meeting web site maintainers could agree on common features that
would help those navigating Monthly Meeting web sites. As of the
writing of this report, 25 Monthly Meetings had web sites. Five
of those Meetings are on the BYM web site, at no cost to the Monthly
Meeting. To some extent, the new QuakerFinder site (http://www.quakerfinder.org/)
makes it less necessary to do the mapping on our web site, but we
are interested in two types of maps, those that locate the Meeting
House in Pennsylvania, Maryland, DC, and Virginia and those that
provide road information for each Meeting House.
We provide material on-line: the Interchange, Minutes of Yearly
Meeting and Interim Meeting. If possible, we will provide the Advance
Reports as well. Ministry and Pastoral Care is considering making
the Spiritual State of the Meeting Reports available in electronic
format. They will solicit opinions from Monthly Meetings as part
of this process. We are also considering publishing the Yearbook
electronically, on a CD. If you would prefer to receive it in this
format, let the Office know. You may be aware that you can elect
to receive e-mail announcing the publishing of the Interchange on-line.
You then view it on-line and print it if you wish. This saves paper
and postage. If your Meeting would like a CD with Faith and Practice
in Portable Document Format (pdf), contact the Yearly Meeting Office.
Finally, the Yearly Meeting’s list bym-news does not have a recognized
owner. We will at some time shift the discussion list to another
site. However, it still works. We have no ability to correct problems.
To join the list, send a blank message to bym-news-subscribe@igc.topica.com
To leave the list, send a blank message to bym-news-unsubscribe@igc.topica.com
To change your e-mail address, first unsubscribe with your old e-mail
address, and then re-subscribe using your new e-mail address.
Howard Fullerton, with input from Allen Briggs,
Frank Massey, and Josh Riley.
|
