Ideal Skating Club/School web site - your opinion?

[sceptique]

I'm doing a pro bono web design project for our skating school and, before I start blueprinting, would like to hear your opinions, as skaters, skater parents and skating enthusiasts - what you would ideally like to see (and not see) on a skating web site. Any wild ideas welcome!

[BatikatII]

Have you checked out all the other UK (and US ) skating club websites. There are quite a few. I set up ours (Bracknell) (not doing the technical stuff but working out what sort of pages we wanted to include and layout ideas). If you like I can pm you a list of website addresses. I think they are also listed on the NISA website. Ours has changed a bit since I started it but it isn't bad - the hardest thing is keeping it up to date.

The main thing we had to be aware of was the problem of posting pictures on the site from the child protection point of view. We tend not to have a lot of pics on the site though we had originally intended to. Most of those that are there are of skaters over 16 and we also asked all parents to sign a declaration that they were happy to have their childrens pics and info on the site. The pictures on the main page are of an over 16 skater and the pair is my kids from when they did pairs and the novice championships, although they are there to represent skaters generically and are therefore not named.

Our club also has an email newsflash service which is invaluable for last minute ice time changes or whatever. We did try putting this on the web but found it was better to email such notices as people don't always visit the website that often.

If your site is also representing the skate school then a mini-bio of the coaches with pics would be nice. Our skate school is seperate from the club so we don't have that.

good luck!

[jenlyon60]

The "KISS" principle is a good one to follow (a principle that the USFSA website very definitely does not follow, IMO).

Avoid use of Flash if possible.

[xofivebyfive]

You should have the ice schedule first of all. I hate sites that don't tell you when you can skate.

[phoenix]

My club's site has a pros page which allows us to access it to post bio. & contact information, photos, & pretty much write in whatever we want about certification, specialties, etc. I've gotten 2 new students from that page, & I love it!

[vesperholly]

I used to do my club's website. Basically, the site should be a tool to get people to go skating. When I was at school in Ohio and didn't know any of the rinks, the first thing I did was check websites for when ice times were. Over half the clubs in Cleveland didn't have up-to-date sites. I guested at the ones that did.

Most important:
Club ice times
Club ice sign-up sheets (PDF)
Learn to skate times
Learn to skate sign-up sheets (PDF)
These are a biggie. Many young mothers who have children to enroll in LTS are web-savvy and will go looking for online forms
Contact info for club office

Second most important:
Membership information and sign-up sheets (PDF)
Test session schedule and test chair contact info
Club competition (if you have one) information - dates, times, location
Coaches bios
Driving directions to rink(s)

Not really important:
Skater photos
History of the club
Competition results
Logo merchandise

My website had these subsections:

News (competition results, schedule changes, upcoming deadlines, awards banquet info, etc)
Ice Times
Learn To Skate
Test Sessions
Club Invitational Competition
Membership
Coaches Directory
Contact

I would also suggest having a form somewhere that people can enter their email address to sign-up for a mailing list, if your club has one. Even if they don't, it's a good quick way to get contact info for potential club members.

[doubletoe]

I think the webmaster of Michelle Kwan's new rink in the L.A. area did a good job with their website.
http://www.artesiaicepalace.com/

[skaternum]

I run my club's site, which was JUST redesigned and launched. We adhere strictly to the KISS principle, and don't use a ton of frames, flash, stupid clipart, and bouncing ball cursors! :lol: Make sure that whatever you do, you keep in mind how much effort must go into maintaining it. One thing to avoid is posting information that your club does not control because it becomes very high maintenance. I've learned, after working with several organizations, that if it's too hard to keep current, it won't be kept current. For example, it's one thing to link to another club's page about their competition, but actually posting text and information about their competition is asking for trouble. The instant something changes, the webmaster has to go in and edit text. We actually don't post competition announcements. We link to USFSA's events search page. Not ideal, but we found the maintenance of keeping up with all the comps became almost a second job for the maintainer. Of course, we post all info about OUR competiton.

Along these lines, we don't post schedules for the local rinks. We link to their websites. We do post the club's Club Ice schedule, though. Our club doesn't run the Learn To Skate classes at any of the rinks; they're run individually by the private rinks. So we don't have info about that -- just the link to the rinks websites.

An archive of newsletters, or even just the current one, is nice to have.

Basic design principles should apply. The professional web designer who designed our new site cautioned against using too many images (except in a separate photo gallery), since some users are still on dial-up. NEVER use flash. Use PDFs, with appropriate levels of security. (On the old site, we actually had someone download a test form and change it, then try to submit it.) We keep info presented on a single page to a minimum. (Some might say extreme, but oh well.)

As for pictures in the photo gallery, members receive a website photo authorization form as part of their annual membership renewal packet (or first time packet for new members). We also make the form available on the website. If we don't have a simple "yes" on the form, we don't post your picture. Period. This cuts down on the number of group shots we can use, but we feel it's important for safety reasons. And we never post last names.

A club's site needs all the usual stuff you'd expect: contact info for officers, committees, webmaster; club by-laws & other such info; a place for announcements; test schedules, forms & results; membership forms & information; etc.

I'd avoid discussion forums because they can get high maintenance and offensive pretty quickly. A secure section for members only would be nice, so you can post membership directories and other confidential info, but they're also higher maintenance (an admin has to keep up with usernames, etc.).

The Biggie for me is maintenance. A volunteer will be maintaining the thing after it's set up, and there will be turnover in this role, so make your directory and file structure simple to understand and maintain.

We're at http://www.skatingclubnc.org. The pics in the gallery are just some we slapped up when we launched the site. We didn't want to have it empty. We'll put up pics from our last test session, the upcoming general membership meeting, etc.

ETA: I meant to mention that the web designer did our website for free, as a volunteer. I'm sure the Board wouldn't have gone for a redesign if we'd had to pay.

[arena_gal]

I totally agree with the maintenance issue. Don't build a house you can't afford to heat.

At a former club, I created the website and wrote it quick in dirty in basic HTML. It was one page basically (html circa 1994) but had all the info and a couple of pdf's for the registration forms. I didn't put Board or Coach names and it was set so that it could run like that for an entire year because I was afraid after I left, no one would know what to do with it. I moved to another town and club and sort of thought I might get a request to update the site, although I left step by step instructions on how to log in and change text without touching the code and reload the site. Seriously, there's probably more formatting in this posting box than there was on that website but it worked.

Nope, no request. The new president wanted a web site with cute dancing icons and scrolling flashing things, and hired someone to build the site. The webmaster, being smart, billed appropriately for time, and now every single change to the website costs $$$ and so nothing gets updated. The site takes too long to load on dial up and doesn't work on a lot of browsers (Flash) and what bugs me immensely, has a big typo on the front page.

They never thought of maintenance, sometimes really low tech is just what's needed.

[rlichtefeld]

Like skaternum, I designed and maintain our club's website.
http://www.gafsc.org

Mine is all plain HTML. No style sheets, no frames, no mouseover, very few scripts. However, I use tables everywhere.

We still have many members with dial up, and I like to play with lots of mobile devices, so I make sure the website plays well with them all.

Another thing is that it is sometimes helpful to have links to the same thing several places on the website. Different people think of looking for things differently. You may want a Forms page and a Membership page, both with links to the membership forms, etc.

For a post only email list, we use Yahoo Groups. We also use that for an online Calendar. We have all the board members as moderators of the Yahoo Group, and they are the only ones that can post messages to the email list.

Rob

[sceptique]

Guys -

thanks a lot for your replies! Great sites, too!

I'll show you mine as soon as it's ready.
For now, here is the link to the site I'm trying to re-desing:
www.internationalschoolofskating.co.uk

It's not too bad, but the content is terribly out of date, and I don't like the navigation logic (or rather the lack of it).