TOPIC:

Hi everyone
I would be interested to know what you think of our website?: sandton.toastmastersclubs.org/

Some important context: we are using that other system to manage our meeting agendas and administer our club, so we are not using the full capabilities of FTH2. But I do believe we are using it in some interesting ways:

• I followed some advice I found on youtube to make our site mobile-friendly (thanks to Heather Turner of District 53 for that webinar). It is really a workaround - it is actually forwarding requests from mobile phones to a small clone website that is built specifically for mobile. So not perfect but in South Africa where our club is based, being mobile-friendly is extremely important to us. Try the above URL from a mobile phone to see what happens (We figure it is better to use a workaround like this rather than rebuild a full mobile-friendly website using some other technology)
• we also found a way to put a blog on the main website (and had to use a similar approach to get the blog on the mobile site too) We have only started writing blog posts in the last few weeks.
• we use a little (advanced) trick we found to make the accordion do our bidding (it is described in the tips & tricks section)
• we make the mobile version of our meeting agenda appear as a popup on our FTH2 site

Regards
Eamonn

Eamonn,

First, let me say that other than a custom picture on your home page, there is nothing different about your site than a stock FTH website when looking at the home page. I would add some color, etc.

All of the links go to the easy-speak site, which may be fine for you, but a problem I have is that it shows personal information like personal email addresses, phone numbers, etc. that FTH keeps confidential.

FTH meeting agendas are also kept confidential to members only.

Even though you may not use all of the features of FTH for meetings, I would encourage you to do more than you have with simply a re-direction tool. Why not use the club calendar to show frequency of meetings? There are plenty of things you can do to kick it up a notch ans still be able to keep both up to date.

Roger, they altered the stock home page accordion... some of the content is in the altered accordion.

I agree that they need color.

Hello!

Though I am not a fan of the accordion panels, I briefly looked to see if I could alter them about a year ago, and didn't figure it out, so kudos!

I agree with Roger, you need more color. Nothing too flashy or bright, though. Just warm colors, so your visitors don't get burnt out staring at white.

You also need more local pictures. Your home page features an "action photo" of someone SPEAKING. That's GREAT!!! But you also need a group photo or two. Something friendly.

Don't forget the social media to help "point" people to your site; Facebook, twitter, G+, etc. A lot of people may find you first on social media.

Having said that, you have a lot of nice bells and whistles with the QR codes and blog, just don't leave out the basics.

Best of luck,
Blaine Little, ACS, CL