Operations
Committee -- Information
& Communication: 2009 AGM Report
by Kevin Miller
I have had responsibility for Triathlon Manitoba's Information & Communication
during the past 12 years. Triathlon Manitoba uses e-mail, our website (100,000 hits in the past year), the telephone, our Spring
newsletter, E-mail Contact List messages (13 in the past year), and paper leaflets to communicate information to our
membership and others.
2009 was another status quo year. I have two miscellaneous comments:
- Anita produced all our E-mail Contact List messages and our Spring
newsletter, and she made all website updates in 2009 (except the posting of race results
from our Grand Prix races, which I handled).
- Like 2008, but unlike 2000 to 2007, we didn't produce any media
releases. I mentioned this in my 2008
report. For 2009-2010, the Operations Committee should either explicitly
decide that producing media releases is not a worthwhile investment
of time, or that we should try to produce them. (It's true that they are rarely published, but at least our members
see them on our website and know we're promoting our sport.)
Website redevelopment
We
have been looking at doing a redevelopment of the Triathlon
Manitoba website, which is now into its 11th season. We all agree that
- it is an extensive repository of information that is constantly and promptly updated, and
- it has a very old technological design.
The technological design needs replacement, but the content on the new
website must be at least as easy to update as the current website.
The idea of redevelopment was initiated almost
a year ago by our Executive Director, Darren Hemeryck. Fellow Director Colin
Blanchette and I have been bouncing thoughts back-and-forth and at Darren for
the past few months. Triathlon Manitoba hasn't yet budgeted any money for a
website redevelopment, and our current budget goes until March 31st. A
redevelopment would occur in the off-season after a new Board was elected, and a
new website would have to be fully operational by April 1st.
In the past few years I've been paying a bit more attention to new
website technology and development methodology:
- I've acquired a fairly good understanding of current website design practices -- what to
look for and discuss with a potential web developer (or web development company).
- It's now very common for a professionally developed website to come with a
content
management system so that the website owner (Triathlon Manitoba) can easily
make content changes within the
web developer's design framework. I'm familiar with two newer websites with content management
systems, and I'm the website content manager of one of
them.
- Post implementation design modifications, functionality additions/changes, and
technical support would require specialized knowledge and skills that are specific to the technical framework of the website.
(My current specific knowledge and skills allow me to perform those functions with
our current website.) We would either contract with the web developer or a web
consultant for post implementation updates and tech support, or a staff
member or director could be trained by the web developer during website
implementation. (Currently, only Colin and I have the pre-requisite
information technology education and experience to potentially be trained to
do post-implementation updates and tech support.)
This initiative will be a high priority for
our new Board.
Please also
refer to my Information & Communication Committee annual reports from
the previous eleven years: 1998,
1999,
2000, 2001,
2002, 2003,
2004, 2005,
2006, 2007,
2008.
This page was last updated on September 28,
2009
