TOPIC:

Please evaluate our website and thank you for adding this feature.

You have done a good job with the FTH website.

Love these things:
+ welcoming on the front page
+ clear directions and map to meeting location
+ calender activated - and cool idea to add ribbon winners on the day following!
+ some links to other files & resources
+ deserving praise about being a cool club which achieves goals
+ some member info available under meet our members
+ contact feature activated

IDEA...
?? I didnot understand the animal images on the front page... consider looking for more club related or solution related images that will be interesting to your target audience.

- Nancy

....and CONGRATS on being PRESIDENTS already!!

Thank you for your evaluation. The bear is warm and friendly like our club.

I found the Castro Valley Toastmasters website user-friendly and informative! Like Nancy, I think images related to your activities might be more appropriate, but the animals were so cute!
I noticed that you don't have many members willing to put information about themselves on the "Meet our Members" section either--I struggle with that too! Good job over all. I guess the telling thing will be if it is bringing you visitors. I plan to ask my visitors if they found what they need on mine. (Rome Club #1844 (romegeorgia.toastmastersclubs.org)

oh!
it looks like a yawning seal pup!

OVERVIEW
As mentioned in my other site evaluations — see background information here — this evaluation focuses exclusively on your home page (and not your subpages) with an eye on grabbing the attention of potential guests and on the aesthetics of the page. My opinions, of course, are my own, but I hope you find the evaluation helpful.

CRITERIA: HOME PAGE GRABS ATTENTION AND GETS POTENTIAL GUESTS TO MEETINGS
A. Does the home page make it exceedingly clear that guests are welcome to visit the club?
It does, though I suggest mentioning that it is free to attend meetings as a guest.

B. Does the home page provide the address to your meeting and give (or link to) explicit directions for how to get to your meeting room?
It doesn’t provide an address, though I recommend that you add it. It does add a link to Google Maps, though I recommend replacing that link with a link to your Meeting Information/Directions page, where hopefully you’ll add a picture of the outside of the building where you meet so folks will know what your building looks like.

C. Does the home page say something that distinguishes the club from other clubs in your area?
Yep. “Award winning.” “…a good mix of beginning and advanced speakers and we are open to anyone…” Well done.

D. Does the home page demonstrate that your club is energetic, active, and vibrant?
I suspect it is, but it’s not spelled out on the page. A list of upcoming meeting dates, some fresh pictures, or a list of upcoming meeting themes might each demonstrate that you’re active and energetic.

E. Does the home page reinforce that your club will help them be better speakers and leaders?
For sure.

F. Does the home page briefly describe what Toastmasters is all about?
Yes.

G. Does the home page have embedded links to additional information about both the club and Toastmasters?
There’s one embedded link to the map, but no other links.

CRITERIA: PROFESSIONAL-LOOKING AND APPEALING HOME PAGE
H. Does the home page use headers that clearly delineate the topics being covered and make it easy on the eyes?
There are two questions, but they’re not formatted as headers to make it easy on the eyes.

I. Does the home page use cheesy clip art, stock photos, or bad animations?
Unfortunately, yes, there are cheesy stock photos. (When I came to your page, I immediately searched out Castro Valley on the map to see if perhaps you were a club located near a zoo. I thought, why the animals? What do animals have to do with public speaking, leadership skills, or your club?)

Apologies to NSB, but I really don’t like the seal pup (or bear, or whatever it is) or the ape photos, at least not for a Toastmasters site. They give off an unprofessional vibe -- these photos would be better found on a children’s page about a zoo -- and they don’t relate to Toastmasters in any way. I suggest replacing them with photos of members from your club who are speaking, accepting awards, or doing something related to the club.

J. Does the home page look like a ransom note (i.e., does it have a lot of different fonts or different-sized fonts, a lot of different colors, a lot of centered text, that sort of thing)?
The page looks a little off. The first picture is off-center. The title "Welcome to the Castro Valley Toastmasters Club" (or is that a caption?) isn’t really centered. The second picture is right justified. The page doesn’t really have a cohesive look to it.

MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS
Under “Who Are We?” you have the word “supportive” in back-to-back sentences. Suggest deleting one of them

In your overall title, I suggest just listing the name of your club and delete “Friendly Supportive Environment.” The extra words crowd the header box.

Don’t know why “Shirley Nelson, ATMB, ALB, Website Administrator” is listed at the bottom of “Who Are We?” I suggest deleting it.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
If the stock photos are any indication, you have a cheery, welcoming club, which is great. I recommend, however, finding a more professional way of communicating that fact. The content you have is good. It won’t take much effort to clean up the page, replace the stock photos with club photos, and add a couple headers.

Thank you very much for reviewing our site and for your detailed analysis. I think you have a great site. Warmly

I really like your sample agenda. Would you please give me detailed instructions for creating similar one. Warmly

Hi Sunshine. I'd be glad to try to explain -- though I may point you to a link on a support site if that says it better than I can -- but I want to clarify something first: Are you looking to create an agenda? Or, are you looking to create a picture of your agenda so you can post it on your site?

Hi Tony...
Thank you. I want to update our weekly agenda.

So this is where I'll have to point you to pages that can describe the process better than I can. This very site has some very good links, which I'm listing below. (Note: I know FTH is updating the agenda code, so the instructions may not be entirely up-to-date, but they should still be useful for you.) Here are the pages:

• Before you do anything, bookmark this great index to agenda creation and editing pages and refer to it and the embedded links often: support.toastmastersclubs.org/component/zoo/item/agenda-index
• To create a new agenda: support.toastmastersclubs.org/component/...reating-a-new-agenda
• To edit an agenda (or existing template): support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/editing-an-agenda
• For information on using templates: support.toastmastersclubs.org/component/...tem/agenda-templates

This can all seem overwhelming, but once you figure out how to navigate between the various screens and how to work with the various elements, it will become easier and easier.

One big suggestion: At first, just create and work on a single agenda using the existing system template that most closely matches how your club's meetings work. Use that agenda to explore all the various elements, edit it, modify it, experiment with it, get as smart with it as you can. Once you get it looking the way you want to it to look and working the way you want it to work, save it as your own template. (This is the beauty of the FTH site, the ability to save your own templates. I have one for our regular meetings, one for our contests, and one for our annual all-improv meeting.) Then, create another agenda using your saved template. Modify it (say, by adding the meeting date and theme in the Meeting Description area) and save it. Then create more agendas using your template. You'll be surprised at how fast the other agendas are to create after you've created a template you like.

I mentioned that it can be overwhelming, but the time spent is definitely worthwhile.

I hope this is helpful. Good luck! And please let us know how it goes.

TonyLivernois wrote:

Note: I know FTH is updating the agenda code, so the instructions may not be entirely up-to-date, but they should still be useful for you.

Code updates do not necessarily translate to feature updates or feature adds. Documentation covers features. Therefore, a code update does not always necessitate a documentation update. in this case, I doubt there will be any documentation changes as I am not currently changing the agenda feature set.

Thank you. I would like to know how you added all the information at the top of your agenda. Warmly

Easy as pie! Go to this link support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/editing-an-agenda and follow the directions to get to the "Meeting Description" edit window.

This area acts as sort of a header for your agenda. Just add and format text like you would using a word processor. You can also add tables, graphics, whatever, and then save it.

Here's what I did with mine, in case the version on my club's site is not readable:



The top section was created with a three-column table. The middle section was created with a two-column table. The bottom part is just centered text. All of that was created in the Meeting Description edit window.

I hope this helps.

Terrific! Thank you very much for your help.