Likes and dislikes about local club web sites

Ron Dennis

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The Alabama Bonsai Society is making a renewed effort to improve our local web site. We would like to ask for suggestions as to what you like or dislike about your own local site. What would you change? What are you doing to promote your site and attract new viewers and perhaps new members. If you have found other interesting local club sites, what impressed you?

Thanks for any input you might be able to suggest.
 
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I would love if my local club had a website. I've 'heard' one exists here in Memphis, but have yet to confirm.
 

Ron Dennis

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I would love it if my local club had a forum like this one.
Interesting thought but may be too difficult to make a reality on a local level with limited membership. Maybe a modified approach focusing on one species for a limited time might work.
 

Bonsai Nut

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I would love it if my local club had a forum like this one.

If you go to the Forums home page, down at the bottom there is a section for club-specific forums. I can easily set up a forum for your club, and give someone moderator privileges over it.

Then people just need to "follow" anything posted in the forum, and they will get an email whenever someone posts.
 

Bonsai Nut

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The Alabama Bonsai Society is making a renewed effort to improve our local web site. We would like to ask for suggestions as to what you like or dislike about your own local site. What would you change? What are you doing to promote your site and attract new viewers and perhaps new members. If you have found other interesting local club sites, what impressed you?

Step back for a moment and think about what you want to accomplish with your site. In most cases it will be to improve engagement with your current members, and attract new members in the area. I think sometimes local sites get lost because suddenly they try to be all things to all people... and do them all poorly. You want to be like a local newspaper and NOT try to cover national news. For example you want to make sure that your site:

(1) Provides information about what your club is, where you meet, and what you generally do at your meetings. Make sure you let visitors know what they need to do if they want to come to a meeting (i.e. is it open door? call ahead for an invite?)
(2) Provide a calendar with upcoming dates and meeting agendas. Most strong clubs I know have a specific meeting day every month and are very organized.
(3) Talk about local bonsai news of interest to your members like:
Upcoming events (bonsai related or even general gardening related)
Seasonal care / weather guide
Local nursery info / local retailer specials
(4) Help people get to know each other. Feature a different member once a month who gets to write a column about whatever they want - a tree they like, a special technique, flowers on their Satsuki, or whatever. Take a lot of pictures at meetings, and mention every person in each photo by name so people will remember names and faces ("Bill and Sue discuss her black pine"). This will also attract potential new members when they see people having fun together.

Don't commit to updating the site daily, because you probably won't be able to, or you'll update it with empty boring content. Try to sync your updates with club activities - one update per meeting or per outing.

What I DON'T like is when local club sites try to do things like a bonsai wiki, or a bonsai dictionary, or "the history of bonsai", or other generic content that already exists on the Internet.
 

Ron Dennis

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Being updated on a regular basis. I.e. The calendar of events be the current year. Links to other websites, such as vendors or learning sites not be five years out of date.
Exactly!
 

Ron Dennis

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Step back for a moment and think about what you want to accomplish with your site. In most cases it will be to improve engagement with your current members, and attract new members in the area. ...."

Thank you for very insightful comments. You are spot on with our goals.
 

sorce

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Out dated info is my biggest dislike.

I would rather see a nice permanent banner with a click to a more easily updateable calander of events.

If that is a thing.

I would rather see a lot of members stuff than like BNUT said....other generic info.

Nice Forum!

Sorce
 

chicago1980

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Ask the people in your club what they want.
They are the ones who will be you main audience.
Websites can de tricky for sure.
Hope it goes well.
 

Ron Dennis

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Ask the people in your club what they want.
They are the ones who will be you main audience.
Websites can de tricky for sure.
Hope it goes well.
Yes. We have done this and the answers are rather non-specific. All agree we can and should do better but very few solid suggestions as to how and this is why we are reaching out to B'nut. Hoping to gather some insight from others. We have already reached out to Bonsai Nut and had his suggested page created. Now to tie this resource into our local site.
 

BrianBay9

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Biggest issue for us is consistently having someone willing and able to keep it current. Doesn't do much good to highlight dates for a club show in 2011. Updated photos of club events are popular. Everyone likes to see themselves or their trees in a pic. Links to local resources for pots, trees, soil components, etc. For sale/trade section.
 

Paradox

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One of my clubs never updates the schedule or only puts updates up a couple of days ahead of time.

The other club made this nice looking but stupid animated intro page with music.

The best things you can have is an updated and comprehensive calender. You need a proactive scheduking person to have that though. Can't make a calender for meetings that arent scheduled. A list of links is good too. Make the website the go-to source for additional info for your members.
 

Vance Wood

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Clubs are full of people that are more than willing to come to a meeting but terrified or to lazzy to get involved with the everyday workings of the club. That's true of all of them. All of the dynamics of any organization become embroiled in politics of its own that tend to get in the way of doing bonsai.
 

Ron Dennis

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Biggest issue for us is consistently having someone willing and able to keep it current. Doesn't do much good to highlight dates for a club show in 2011. Updated photos of club events are popular. Everyone likes to see themselves or their trees in a pic. Links to local resources for pots, trees, soil components, etc. For sale/trade section.
Too true. Fortunately, we now have two members willing to tackle our site and make it more user friendly and informative. Hopefully, by this time next month we will have made great progress.
 

chicago1980

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Would a facebook club page be easier to manage?
 

Bonsai Nut

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Would a facebook club page be easier to manage?

Not a fan :) I think Facebook is the single greatest threat to personal privacy that has ever been invented. Their entire business model is based on knowing your most intimate personal details and selling them to the highest bidder. Your life. Your family. Your friends. Your interests. Your friends' friends. What you believe. What your friends believe. Your love interests.

And the worst part - you give all of that inf0rmation to a for-profit company. Freely and willingly.

I am a huge privacy advocate - just say "no" :)
 

chicago1980

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Not a fan :) I think Facebook is the single greatest threat to personal privacy that has ever been invented. Their entire business model is based on knowing your most intimate personal details and selling them to the highest bidder. Your life. Your family. Your friends. Your interests. Your friends' friends. What you believe. What your friends believe. Your love interests.

And the worst part - you give all of that inf0rmation to a for-profit company. Freely and willingly.

I am a huge privacy advocate - just say "no" :)
I can appreciate that. I have conceded to the idea that any time I am on the internet, my data is being collected.

That being said, I would like more information about fellow local bonsai members in my club or area. Maybe a member profile page with the ability to upload images of your collection. Tree Tracker or something. More videos of tutorials, especially local information about my climate.
 
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