All arts groups and not-for-profits spend energy defining what they want from a website and how to achieve it. We have been doing this since 1998.
The website is our main permanent asset. We do not maintain premises – when our exhibitions are over we would cease to exist in the public eye. We would have nothing but catalogues (with no images) to show potential sponsors and donors and nothing to indicate to prospective members what sort of work they might consider exhibiting in our shows. We would suffer even more from corporate amnesia.
The proposal for the 2003 website was that the database could be constructed (custom built as there were no modular systems around at the time) that would link exhibition records to individual sculptor records and thus automatically update sculptor profile pages as exhibitions were recorded. This removed any need for sculptors to invest in pages constructed for them on the ASV website. So the initial group of $100 contributors are the only ones who made extra contributions to the site – the rest of the sculptors are recorded on the site on the automatic system and any more individual recording is done on their personal sites to which we now include a link.
The site was designed such that whilst exhibition records were always intact sculptor profile pages were only visible if a sculptor was a financial member. The principle of the site worked well for us but the content management script became increasingly more difficult with time.
We were advised that website designers would prefer to start again building a new site rather than fix up someone else’s work. The recommendations I received from Paula at Paradigm4 were that we should seek a large company so that we would have continuity of service even if one person dropped out, and that translation to a modular system (such as Joomla) would cost a bit but make the long term management of the site easier. She also suggested we might be paying around $10,000 for a redesign and data transfer. The committee fainted and then "shot the messenger". As it turns out we have spent around $8,000 and not got a site that works for us.
So, since our current website designer is unable to continue with us we have been interviewing another designer recommended as able to handle the work. And we are up against the level of shock at the cost of work. What we are planning is a system that not only records exhibitions but also maintains records of sculptors’ contributions to those exhibitions – a simple cross referencing that, once it is in place, will be simple to manage. Consider it as the ASV record of exhibitions and sculptor profile pages at $100 to $150 per sculptor – a flexible system that should be easy to maintain and also easy to update as the Expression Engine system evolves.
At this point, as Gillian put it in her president’s letter, we need to bring the membership up to date and to improve the transparency of the process - so members are invited to attend the meeting of April 9 at the Ashburton Meeting Rooms.
Do we want a website?
We said yes in 1998
Should the website record both exhibitions and sculptor profile pages?
No – then what do you want? Yes – then get on with it
We have spent far too much time stuck over making decisions on the website and this means that we are unable to move on with any other project. And our "publicity capital" is declining as the website fails to provide the records of a dynamic and active organisation.
If you are planning to attend the meeting please contact Gillian Govan or Jenny Rickards regarding receiving further more detailed documentation so that you are better informed.
Jenny Rickards
ASV Website Contact
The website is our main permanent asset. We do not maintain premises – when our exhibitions are over we would cease to exist in the public eye. We would have nothing but catalogues (with no images) to show potential sponsors and donors and nothing to indicate to prospective members what sort of work they might consider exhibiting in our shows. We would suffer even more from corporate amnesia.
The proposal for the 2003 website was that the database could be constructed (custom built as there were no modular systems around at the time) that would link exhibition records to individual sculptor records and thus automatically update sculptor profile pages as exhibitions were recorded. This removed any need for sculptors to invest in pages constructed for them on the ASV website. So the initial group of $100 contributors are the only ones who made extra contributions to the site – the rest of the sculptors are recorded on the site on the automatic system and any more individual recording is done on their personal sites to which we now include a link.
The site was designed such that whilst exhibition records were always intact sculptor profile pages were only visible if a sculptor was a financial member. The principle of the site worked well for us but the content management script became increasingly more difficult with time.
We were advised that website designers would prefer to start again building a new site rather than fix up someone else’s work. The recommendations I received from Paula at Paradigm4 were that we should seek a large company so that we would have continuity of service even if one person dropped out, and that translation to a modular system (such as Joomla) would cost a bit but make the long term management of the site easier. She also suggested we might be paying around $10,000 for a redesign and data transfer. The committee fainted and then "shot the messenger". As it turns out we have spent around $8,000 and not got a site that works for us.
So, since our current website designer is unable to continue with us we have been interviewing another designer recommended as able to handle the work. And we are up against the level of shock at the cost of work. What we are planning is a system that not only records exhibitions but also maintains records of sculptors’ contributions to those exhibitions – a simple cross referencing that, once it is in place, will be simple to manage. Consider it as the ASV record of exhibitions and sculptor profile pages at $100 to $150 per sculptor – a flexible system that should be easy to maintain and also easy to update as the Expression Engine system evolves.
At this point, as Gillian put it in her president’s letter, we need to bring the membership up to date and to improve the transparency of the process - so members are invited to attend the meeting of April 9 at the Ashburton Meeting Rooms.
Do we want a website?
We said yes in 1998
Should the website record both exhibitions and sculptor profile pages?
No – then what do you want? Yes – then get on with it
We have spent far too much time stuck over making decisions on the website and this means that we are unable to move on with any other project. And our "publicity capital" is declining as the website fails to provide the records of a dynamic and active organisation.
If you are planning to attend the meeting please contact Gillian Govan or Jenny Rickards regarding receiving further more detailed documentation so that you are better informed.
Jenny Rickards
ASV Website Contact
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