Grant, The big problem with having members do it for nothing is that you are then dependant of the said member to maintain it - Something that Tim did, but others may not - over the years, I've had a lot of business from sports organisations where the volunteer has stopped volunteering - the reasons I have encountered include:
- a new committee pisses off the volunteer - The president's nephew has promised a new improved site, breaks everything and walks away - the original volunteer, rightly, wants nothing to do with the mess. - the volunteer no longer has the time available (for many reasons) - new requirements are more than the volunteer can handle (time or ability). I've used the term "volunteer", but this also includes members doing work on a cost recovery or reduced price basis. Accepting a charge of less than a commercial rate is rarely a good idea - the person doing the work won't give it the priority of "full paid" work, and the committee will expect the same service as they would get if they paid full price - no one wins. This leaves a commercial system, which needs to be cheap, so gives little room for customisation. I suspect that the decision to use IMIS was a good one, given the starting point - the implementation of it was flawed however. Tim, I've been providing the entry and results management software for a major sailing regatta in the UK since 1990 and although I stopped sailing in 1998 and left the UK in 2003, I still provide support for it. They have repeatedly looked for a commercial alternative (at my request), but there is nothing that works for them at any price. What I did do though was make sure that the web content published direct from the system worked on any reasonable common browser starting in 1994 and continuing to today. Now what I find frustrating is that somehow this new web site was permitted to go live without proper testing (or if it was tested, 25% of potential users were ignored - I really hope this isn't the case). At the very least, the "content" should be updated so the home page lets people know of the problems and when they are likely to be resolved. As things stand, the site is un-useable for some of us (without using a different browser), and for the public looking for information on gliding, it is a PR disaster. Unfortunately, Safari really is the best browser to use with a Mac, Firefox has usability limitations when viewing PDF documents - which are common on the GFA web site ! As I was informed on the 14th Sept, "The problems with Safari, have been resolved, but we need to do an upgrade. Before we rush to do this, we want to make sure there is nothing else that could be resolved at the same time." Clearly, there is no rush, but this is getting to be a bit much. I would love to know what I could do to help speed things up - Any ideas ? Matt On 22/10/2010, at 10:37 , Tim Shirley wrote: > Grant, > > I built and maintained every computerised membership system the GFA ever had > (starting in 1978 and finishing in 2000 or so) until they went - with my > encouragement - to a commercial system. After 20 years, I think I have > earned the right to say that those who whinge should be helping, instead. > > When you have done it for that long, let me know. > > Cheers > > Tim > > se sono rose, fioriranno > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Grant Davies > Sent: Friday, 22 October 2010 10:29 > To: 'Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.' > Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] New Website - Can't Find anything !!! > > It is not that hard to build a CMS, even interfacing shouldn’t be that hard. > I build them for less than $5k. > > Help was offered and I am sure there are plenty of other web savvy > programmers out there who could have done a great job for far less than what > was paid for a plug-in solution. But nothing was the stern reply. I think > $50k was touted as the cost for this great upgrade. > > As we all know, an out of the box solution never fits all applications. Be it > iMIS or Joomla. As soon as you want to make it do something different things > get ugly. > > It is not really the wC3 compliance that’s the problem. Most browsers can > deal with it, except some of the less popular ones running on Macs it seems. > The issue is more that it is slow and clunky and not logical to navigate. Of > course there is also the fact that non web/graphical savvy people try their > best to add content but it doesn’t always come out looking that great. > > Options: > 1. Pay a large company heaps of money for an off the shelf solution that > doesn’t quite do the job and wait for every and pay even more if you want > anything changed or altered > 2. Have your members do something for either nothing or very little and > have it do exactly what you want and maybe have to wait a little if changes > are required > > Of course there are pros and cons with both options. > > Guess the GFA thought “well we have plenty of money let’s just go for the > (perceived) easiest option and disregard the fact that it is the members > money and that it will not give the best outcome”. > > The long and the short of it is; help can be offered but if there is no > acceptance of the help then let us whinge about the decisions that have been > made so someone may understand that what has been done is not up to scratch, > otherwise we all accept and struggle with something that isn’t up to scratch > and no one is any the wiser. > > Shooting people down in flames for expressing an opinion is not a good look > either. It is through discussion that we move forward. > > </soapbox> > > Kindest Regards > > Grant Davies > m. 0419 818 315 > f. 07 41 54 14 36 > e. [email protected] > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tim Shirley > Sent: Thursday, 21 October 2010 06:50 PM > To: 'Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.' > Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] New Website - Can't Find anything !!! > > IMIS runs the GFA membership system, and has for several years. As I > understand it, this made it the best option when considering an appropriate > CMS. > > Standing on the sidelines and whinging is not a good look. If you don’t like > the site, how about offering to help? > > Cheers > > Tim > > se sono rose, fioriranno > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Matthew > Scutter > Sent: Thursday, 21 October 2010 19:18 > To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. > Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] New Website - Can't Find anything !!! > > I tried to find the minutes of the meeting where they decided to switch to > this iMIS system, but couldn't find them on the new site either! > > I notice the old website was using Joomla!, a fairly popular open source > content management system, does anyone know what the GFA's issues were with > that? > > On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 5:50 PM, Texler, Michael > <[email protected]> wrote: > The gfa pages fail validation via wC3. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Aus-soaring mailing list > [email protected] > To check or change subscription details, visit: > http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring > > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 10.0.1136 / Virus Database: 422/3211 - Release Date: 10/21/10 > > _______________________________________________ > Aus-soaring mailing list > [email protected] > To check or change subscription details, visit: > http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
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