A community web site built by young people

[Kevin O'Sullivan]

Following the 2009 unConference I went away enthused about the possibilities of working with young people from the parish to build a new web site..

Having talked to a number of people at the conference about free tools that could be used for developing a web site we planned to use Wordpress however sadly even this proved too technical for us and so we went for Google sites and all the supporting Google products (everything was free) that can be plugged into this. So during the summer holidays of 2009 a small group set about understanding what the Parish might want in a new site, conducting a survey and then designing and building a new site. It won’t win any design awards and is far from finished (maybe modern sites never are) and in particular I am conscious that we don’t have an area specifically for young people however I am really proud of what they achieved and thought it might be of interest to others. You can find the site at www.stmaryscrowborough.org.uk

When we asked for people with technical help to assist the group not surprisingly we were not swamped however two volunteers did hold up their hands. One a retired executive and keen photographer without whom the site would have been very drab and the other more interestingly a very techie and enthusiastic twelve year old who made a great contribution.

[Tim Davies]

Hey Kevin

The site looks fantastic.... best example of a Google Site I think I've seen.

I'd love to hear more about the process you went through to develop the site. You mention you don't have a young people's area - but did your survey throw up any thoughts from young people on how they might like to engage with the Church on the web?

:)

[Kevin O'Sullivan]

I will try and answer as meaningfully as I can, mistakes and all!

1. Following the 2009 unConference I arranged with one of the parents of the previous years Confirmation Group (7 members, now 16 years old) a reunion BBQ at which I could invite them to take on the challenge of building a new web site over the summer holidays.

2. As a group they were really buzzing when they got together and to be frank I was having serious doubts that this was such a good idea. Anyway we found a room and I explained the proposition. I felt it would be good for them individually and would add something unusual to their CV’s and that if they did the hard yards I would be happy to give them a reference, it would be good for the parish to see young people actively engaged and hopefully it would be fun.

3. They couldn’t have been more enthused about the idea and needed no persuasion but really embraced the idea to the point that they had to be called twice too break off for food and when we resumed they were straight back into it and kept at it till midnight. It was a tremendous experience and to be honest I was amazed. In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined that much energy.
We spent the evening working with white boards trying to map out how we would approach the project, how we would stay in contact with each other over the holiday period, what skills and talents we had in the team. We had one person heading off to Germany for the summer claiming they would stay in touch and be involved (sadly I haven’t heard anything since) another heading to Gloucester and then just the normal summer holidays!
My biggest concern (voiced to them) from the beginning was their ability to remain engaged, communicate with each other and collaborate remotely. They assured me it would be OK. These areas ultimately had me exasperated at times, but more on that later.

4. To help with the co-ordination I set up a closed Google site the following morning and was quickly impressed with its simplicity and flexibility.
During the first 20 or so days we were seeking technical help from adults in the parish who has knowledge and experience of web design, blogging (specifically Wordpress) and computer graphics.
Sadly nobody came forward with these skills (although a couple of enthusiastic 12 year olds and a photographer volunteered) and as the most technical person in the group (current parish web master) started to look at Wordpress he was daunted and felt it was beyond him and was quickly heading towards exiting.
So enter Plan B; why not use Google sites given that I had knocked up a site in a morning and it seemed to me it would not only be something we could get the whole team involved in as it required quite a low technical capability (I had suspected that if we went with Wordpress the technical work would fall to one or two, with the others doing non technical tasks) but would also lend itself to being maintained by a number of people within the parish and would thereby spread the load and help ensure we keep it current once it went live (this had been my hope with Wordpress in that I had perceived it to require less technical capability then it ultimately proved).

5. We decided that before we started it might be a good idea to conduct a survey, together with interviews of key parishioners, most obviously the parish priest who was an enthusiastic supporter but doesn’t use a computer! We also reviewed a number of more current church web sites looking for ideas around design and content and mapped out the existing web site.

6. The survey was created with a view to understanding how parishioners used the internet, or didn’t, and our web site and various other factors. Including the views of those who were unable to make it to church regularly of who’s first language was not English. The respondents were in excess of 45 which of a mass going population of about 250 I thought was an excellent response for a two page survey. We didn’t however have any specific suggestions in the response from young people, although as well as handing it out in hardcopy at both masses we did publicise it through our Facebook group.

7. We used Google docs to record the feedback in a spreadsheet via a Form which helpfully can also be emailed to people. This was used with the Facebook group and provided to the group who visited the sick and housebound. As a bi-product you can automatically create a very nice summary with pie charts at the push of a button.

8. Taking on board the feedback, the output from the interviews and the observations from other church web sites I set about putting forward some design thoughts initially via Visio - a mistake (as none of them had it and so couldn’t edit it) and then using Word.
Around this point I created a second closed web site as a play area where we could test ideas and concepts, colours etc.
What they really struggled with was the idea of play and indeed working remotely and if I was to do it again I would aim to have sessions at a central location where they would come along and work together. Also communicating with them was and remains a mystery to me even at the end as they frequently didn’t respond to emails or texts yet when you did speak to them they were genuinely keen to do stuff.

9. During this phase we sent letters to the leaders of the various group in the parish asking them to complete a form setting out what they would like to say about their group on the new web site. Once they were ready, rather than send the form to us, we would send them a link to a Google form, as with the earlier survey, so they could do the typing and we could then just cut and past the text into the appropriate page. This worked well.

10. When it came to building the live we site we had 5 working on it at times remotely but generally the most productive work was done when they were working near me. One of the twelve years olds in particular had no problem editing the HTML around images and Alt text, and so a new site was borne www.stmaryscrowborough.org.uk
For those that might be interested the elements of Google we used are listed below:
• Google sites – to build and host the web site
• Google Site Forum for ideas on how to do things. An invaluable resource
• Picasa (Google) – To host the associated photo gallery
• Google Analytics – Monitoring visitors
• Google Webmaster tools – Understanding usage and improving indexing of the site
• Google Docs – To create and host Contact Us Form, Parish Groups, the Survey and various Legal Docs referenced on the site
• Google Calendar – Church calendar (could also have been used for showing the availability of the church hall for bookings etc if people had been comfortable with the technology)
• Google Local Business Centre – Getting St Mary’s at the top of the page rankings on the left hand side – this is not yet active for us, we are awaiting a PIN (other local churches have already done this)
• Google Maps – Creating maps for the site
My intention was to create a site that would allow others within the parish to take on or and work on specific projects that would contribute new elements to the site and so keep it fresh. Also I can see the potential for using other aspects of the Internet / Google as part of a wider internet strategy for engagement and communication. Time will tell.

I hope this is of interest and helps.

[Andy Appleyard]

Hi Kevin,

Was your website expensive to put together ?

I have a group of young people that attend the youth club who are wanting to set one up for the club / community.

Thanks,

Andy

[Kevin O'Sullivan]

Hi Andy

It took time and the help of a good photographer volunteer but all the Google stuff is free and the Google Sites forum has suggestions for creating / editing images with things like GIMP which is also free plus various other things e,g, a starting point for a logo might be http://googlefont.com/ if you like Googles approach. Another useful web site if you have somebody techie is http://sites.google.com/site/annuairevin/tips-and-tricks-for-google...

I guess you really need somebody with a little technical knowledge to control and direct the efforts and have a design / architecture to use all the various Google elements (if that is the direction you go).

If you are going to use images then I would encourage you to use alt tags having seen the difference this makes to a blind person giving a presentation using a reader.

Hope this helps

Best regards

Kevin

[Andy Appleyard]

Cheers for the reply Kevin, also thanks for those links!

I was hoping i was the individual with the "little technological knowledge" but after doing a bit of research i dont think i have.

I will keep plodding away!

Much appreciated.

Andy