Hi
Want to bring our long established club (1947) racing into this century! Any advice on setting up a website, hosting etc and of course Cheap! Any help would be appreciated.

Our website www.wimodelboats.org is hosted by justhost.com. I admin the site using MS Frontpage. Hosting is about $65/year with domain registration. You can find free sites if you don't mind all the ads which pay for it.

Before starting a website, ask if you can give it the time needed for maintenance and club updates… for at least a few years. If webby stuff is your hobby, and you’d just as soon write newsletters as build models- then you’re the man for the job!

I tried it for a while, and it was a real time sucker… which is why our club site has devolved to a club “thread” in RCG Clubs:
http://www.rcgroups.com/michigan-sca...boat-club-767/

And a fun run thread in Dock Talk, where others can see what we’ve been up to:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1032466


Low overhead, easy to maintain, free, and any clubbie can update it.

Hi
I dont mind the setting up, only really want the site to inform people who we are, some photos, where and when we meet and be able to contact nominated people via email. When you say maintenance what are you referring to and how much time. Appreciated Thanks

If you have a news & events pages you need to keep to keep those updated. A basic site with the info you describe would only need occasional upkeep. It is important though to not let the site get too dated. I have seen websites that haven't been updated since 2005. The true upsides to having a website are one if people google model boat clubs in your area they will find you, and two you can have an e-mail account attached to the website so no member has to expose theirs to spam.

Pat, I have long ago given up on placing much club stuff on RCG. I am still waiting for the admins to get back to me on adding the WSBA to the RC Club subforum:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1032748

Got any Mac users in your little cabal? If so, its quite simple & easy to get online using iWeb that comes standard in Mac OS. Also plenty of free hosting sites like Jimdo, Webly, Wix, etc.. that use templates to build a page.

Free = ads, and it's usually so bad that it's a turnoff for visitors

Originally Posted by patmat2350

Before starting a website, ask if you can give it the time needed for maintenance and club updates… for at least a few years. If webby stuff is your hobby, and you’d just as soon write newsletters as build models-

Yep, so true! All your modeling time will become "maintaining the site" time. Been there done that, got all the lousy t-shirts.

It's way more than just posting content (like, say, editing and laying out the monthly newsletter) - and it's totally thankless in most cases.

If you're up for it, it is a real boon service to your club and the hobby community.

And I agree with Pat, whatever else you may do, do NOT use a free site! The ads will really p**s off everyone who comes to your site.

(Your site should be a LAMP stack site for best flexibility)

The primary thing to remember about putting up a web site is this - it must be CONSTANTLY MAINTAINED (as in daily) because it is YOUR CLUB'S PRIMARY POINT OF CONTACT WITH THE WORLD! More people will see your web site in a week than may stop by your lake in a year!

Initial impressions are the most important because they are strongest and longest lasting. A web site with dated information that hasn't been updated is worse than no web presence at all.

Also, speaking of web presence, you'll need to get at least a Facebook site up as well. We'll all want to "like" you as we follow your twitters about boats!

Originally Posted by bgrunes

.... only really want the site to inform people who we are, some photos, where and when we meet and be able to contact nominated people via email

This would be more like a Facebook page than a full website.

A full web site must should members to foster community and (while the forums are doing that) they are constantly providing you with free and current content. I recommend vBulletin as a good, stable, and supported forums software. (vBulletin Website here) You should like it - you're using it here.

Yes, it does cost some dollars, BUT for those dollars you get good, STABLE software and most importantly, you get tech support, you're not out there all by your lonesome when something goes wronxgx.

Just remember - you do this, more so than any boat, model or otherwise, ever was, a web presence is a a temporal black hole with a massive accretion disk!

Some great model boaters at the Three Rivers MBC, but just click through a few pages on their free site and see what I mean!

http://scalemodelboatclub.tripod.com/index.html

another option is a "yahoo group"
I initially set up a free site on webly, then some club members said they would
like to be able to imput chat or pictures also-my intention was to just write a blog every week about what went on at the pond for those who weren't there. ( I currently have 25 guys on the member list for our yahoo group).
it's free, works fine -I figured it out so it ain't hard to do. I can post pics , have
links to other websites and do files and database lists. also, you can have the
home page and chat open to the public - but have all other features closed to
members only -which you as owner/moderator admit.
all your guys need is a password for yahoo, then they ask to be members
of your clubs page.

Allan

Hi

For a day to day News / Info site why not use a Facebook Page eg : =

( Facebook Search ) Knightswood Model Boat Club , it works for us , plus you can have a members group.

Timo2


PS cost NIL a good Scottish price

The club I belong to uses Yahoo groups for regular contact and Google places for FTP (website) space.

I've been thinking about mentioning Facebook as an group contact, show off to the public thing.

it must also be known that most ISP's provide a certain amount of FTP space with your account.

it's usually not a whole a lot of space mind you. usually way less than a gig. (which isn't a whole lot nowadays)
but you use your free FTP, fill out your raw text Http code.pictures and what not are remote linked from photobucket of flicker, picasso, what have you photo server, then regester a dot com that directs the traffic to the original FTP.

sound complicated? it really isn't... it's just a matter of keeping track of addresses, and all the word processing programs will encode your pages in HTML for you..

that's called WYSISYG, what you see, is what you get, or, pronounced in internet speak, wizzywig. an updating and managing a website is really no more difficult nowadays than making a post here with imbedded pictures.

it's kinda fun actually.
by the way, these forums function under another protocol known as PhP.

BUT! and here is my big ole butt again... social media things like face book are more interactive, and direct, usually provide everything you are looking for and have built in direct access to a far greater audience of likely viewers. and chances are that most of your club members have an account already.
all that really takes is setting up a group page and have your users.. like it.

I just do it the old-fashioned way. I get a name, set up a host (usually my brother, who owns an ISP), and then hand-write the HTML that goes on it.

Andy

Quite often your ISP will provide free space for a few web pages - so a simple web site can be put up for essentially nothing beyond a bit of time writing a page and submitting it to your provider.

If you don't want the domain name to be http://www. boatclub.johndoe@provider.com, you can use a free 'redirection' service to create a more meaningful name and direct it to the pages you have written.

Many thanks to everybody's help, just to let you know Ive just produced the website and I can even find it when i search on google......yipee

Anyway if your interested and want to take a look its:

www.crosbymodelboatclub.co.uk

Always open to any comments or advice
Thanks again