My name is Karl Rabe (AKA The Raven) and I will soon be assuming responsibility for the Ann Arbor Magic Club Website (Ring 210) website.

We will be looking at updating our website, and I have been researching existing Ring websites to see what technology they use, what features they offer, etc. I have also been looking at different technologies that will best meet our needs -- Wordpress, etc. -- as well as what themes and templates those technologies offer that are best suited for the needs of a Ring.

It occurs to me that most Rings would have the same basic needs and there may be an opportunity to share information and learn from each other. Maybe eventually we could have a template or theme that could be leveraged by other Rings that would make everyone's life easier.

Are you your Ring's Webmaster? As a first step, how about sharing who you are and a little bit about your Ring's website.

- Ring Website URL
- Technology Used
- Things that work well
- Things that you wish worked better
- Plans for updating in the future

I'll follow this post with a second with our information.

Ring 210 ( http://www.aamagic.org )
Karl Rabe (TheRaven)
Maintained using Namo WebEditor v5.0

Challenges we have today are
1. Security for members only section is labor intensive to maintain
2. Content can only be updated by webmaster

Future goals
1. Officers can update content themselves
2. Security easy to maintain
3. Have an integrated calendar for club events
4. Eliminate need for client pc based administration software

I'm looking at Wordpress as the likely technology to replace what we have today. Looking for ideas on themes and plugins that have worked well for other Rings.

Karl

Raleighmagicclub.com
Created using GoDaddy.com Website Builder
Webmaster : Skip Way

Content can be updated by appointed administrators.
Security and various apps are built in.
Site is sponsored by professional members and businesses.

Oops ... That's http://www.RaleighMagicClub.org ...

I also created http://www.Magic-NC.com as a TVP site.

Karl, I can't open your site.

Skip

http://www.ring2100.org

Ring 2100 has more online technical requirements than most.

We use Joomla with various plugins, the main one is Kunena which provides a full featured forum much like this one.

Joomla is very powerful content management solution, and it's FREE! All you need is a host that can support PHP and MySQL. (most do)

You've done an amazing job over the years keeping online Ring 2100 going and growing! Lots of patience! Lots of skill! Many thanks, Dave!

Greeting to all. I recently return to the art of magic after some 20 years. I am now having the time of my life. I live in the Louisville area and was hoping someone might be able to point out a local IBM chapter where I live. Thank you in advance for your help

Regards
Trace Hankins

Trace,
Ring 64 - Okito, Burton
Louisville, Kentucky

Contact: Gerald Oliver, 4517 Sandhill Rd., Louisville, Ky. 40219
When: 2nd Tuesday of each month at 7 pm (Check web site for any changes)
Location: Kosair Charities, 982 Eastern Parkway, Louisville, KY
Phone: (502) 969-2822 Hm (502) 777-0801 Cell
http://www.lmcmagic.com/

Let me know if you have any questions. Apologies for running off thread, Raven.

Skip

Skip - the site uses flash (another shortcoming) so won't work properly from iOS devices.

That is an issue. I recently modified my sites to work better on iOS and other mobile systems. These days, I'd guess that nearly half of pur visitors are on mobile.

Well it has been the better part of a year, but we have finally upgraded our website and technology. We conducted a technology survey of our members to see what the data told us about how our members use technology. We then looked at a lot of other club websites and technology options.

We settled on using WordPress and the Frontier Theme. We found this to meet our needs with the minimum effort. We are using a plugin for calendar as well as for categorizing media. Frontier is an adaptive theme that automatically reformats for mobile devices so the mobile experience is pretty decent also. The calendar plugin is awesome and makes maintenance a breeze. The media library plugin allows us to tag images and uploads (PDFs) so that they automatically appear in menus when new content is uploaded (we are using it for our newsletters section). These are the plugins we are using.

All-in-One Event Calendar by Time.ly
Enhanced Media Library
Jetpack by WordPress.com


Ring 210 ( http://www.aamagic.org )
Karl Rabe (TheRaven)
Maintained using WordPress

Happy to field any questions for others on migrating to Wordpress.

Karl Rabe

- Ring Website URL http://www.Ring170.com
- Technology Used: Adobe Dreamweaver
- Things that work well "Keeping our main page up to date"
- Things that you wish worked better "Everything works, I wish I adding a background texture"
- Plans for updating in the future "Re-building the site in fluid design technology, HTML 5)

The key to a good magic club site is to change the main page every month. Keep your visitors coming back.

Craig