EAA Chapter Web Sites

It seems that EAA national has recently starting offering hosted web sites to chapters. A nice idea in theory, except that -- whether your chapter wants it or not -- they have already gone ahead and created a site for you. Like most chapters mine already has a web site and we do not need this additional one as it will only cause confusion if people find it. Worse, though, is that EAA's chapter finder now points to the bogus site instead of our real site, which will serve to prevent people from finding us. Thank you EAA national. If your chapter has its own web site you might want to check if this has happened to you also.

Hi Nels -

Yes, we launched the sites in June, and conscously built a basic placeholder site for every chapter. Contrary to your comment, it's only about a third of our EAA chapters worldwide that have a viable web site, so this project was, in our opinion, long overdue.

The decision was made to use the new ones as the landing point when searching for a Chapter, instead of the old pages we linked to with minimal info.

In other words, when looking for, say, Chapter 22 in the locator, this is where you ended up:

http://www.eaa.org/chapters/locator/...apterNumber=22

Now, you end up here:

http://22.eaachapter.org

On a page that includes contact info and upcoming events (and a separate page with all of that chapter's events) that is always up to date. And, for chapters that decide to use it, a number of other tools to grow the site. This is especially useful for those chapters that don’t have someone with the time and / or skillset to be a dedicated webmaster.

Yes, the key difference is that we’re no longer automatically including the “real” web address for the relatively small number of chapters that have them. The thinking here was that it wouldn’t be unduly burdensome to ask those chapters to log in the new sites once, and post a link to their preferred site.

And, yes, this also means that, under the current design, there is one additional click required to get to a chapter’s preferred site. When we made this choice, we did so consciously thinking it was a fair trade-off when weighed against the benefits of us providing the sites and the tools to every single EAA chapter worldwide.

The rest of the feedback we've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive, but I'm eager to work with all of our chapters to address their concerns. The new sites are only meant to support our chapter network, and to solve a pretty glaring problem of communications. Like any one-size-fits-all solution, it's not perfect, so let's figure out ways to improve it.

Thanks -

Hal

Hal,

For those chapters that already have websites that we plan to keep, how difficult would it be to have the chapter locator point right to those sites and avoid the extra click? Every extra step is one more person that might get lost in the process?

Hal,
Perhaps a link (if it exists) to the chapters own page right above the eaa chapter link. I dig the pages you have created for each chapter. I would also suggest that there be a simple way to upload news and events for the chapters. I would be happy to discuss with yourself or others methods to allow the chapters to easily update there pages.
Thanks for you work

Hal,

I just spent a little time playing with the chapter locator. For my own chapter (18) there is not even a link to our existing website, just an email link. Also, I noticed that for some chapters (288 is one I noticed) the website address is listed but it is not a hyperlink, requiring one to scrape the address and open it in another page/ tab.

I applaud the effort to bring websites to all chapters, but it is still a little rough around the edges. Think of it like a homebuilt project in it's final stages- "90% finished, only 70% to go."

Hi Jeff -

Chapter 288 chose to edit their new site and delete the contact info and replace it with a link to their existing site, but, for some reason, it didn't show up as a hyperlink. I'll fix that for them shortly.

As to your earlier post, you're absolutely right about wanting to minimize the number of steps, though we've really only partially increased them:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but, in the "old" way, you'd search for a chapter and we'd potentially show two links for each one - one to take you to the landing page mentioned above, one to take you directly to the chapter's site if they had one. For those people that clicked through to the landing page, nothing has changed - to jump from there to another site, if applicable, requires another click.

When we started this project, there were hundreds of chapters with sites that were, in may cases, years out of date - in my personal opinion, that's worse than not having a site at all. Linking directly to those, as well as the negative impact of listing a chapter with a blank space in the "website" column wasn't doing anyone any favors.

Coming back around to your question, then, the challenge we face is in finding a way to manage the information on our end to guarantee that we can always provide up-to-date core information about each chapter to their prospective members.

I know Steve Buss (our Chapter Manager) will have a look at this thread once he's caught up on email from last week's vacation - I'm sure he's glad to see the discussion around this as well.

Cheers -

Hal

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wyoranch

Hal,
Perhaps a link (if it exists) to the chapters own page right above the eaa chapter link. I dig the pages you have created for each chapter. I would also suggest that there be a simple way to upload news and events for the chapters. I would be happy to discuss with yourself or others methods to allow the chapters to easily update there pages.
Thanks for you work

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Thanks for the feedback!

As far as a simple way to upload news and events - the new sites are meant to do just that for news, and events are covered here: http://www.eaa.org/calendar/submit.aspx

There are some tweaks planned for the calendar, but if you've got ideas on how to improve / simplify it, we're all ears!

Thanks -

Hal

I attended the online presentation Chapter Web Sites - Let's Get Started! by Hal and Steve last Thursday. I believe that many of the issues addressed above can be resolved. I am going to use the www.webs.com editor for my wed site as it looks easy to use and has the features to fine tune things. I would encourage those with an interest in these kinds of things to look up this online presentation when it is up on the EAA site.

Rick -

Glad you could sit in on the Webinar. It's posted on our video site (www.eaavideo.org) and I've embedded it in the Tutorials section of the Chapter support site as well:

http://www.support.eaachapter.org/we...ingstarted.htm

Thanks -

Hal

Hal,
Sorry about the suggestion on an easy way to upload. I was not aware that was available to the chapters. I will be quiet now and go away.
Rick

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wyoranch

Hal,
Sorry about the suggestion on an easy way to upload. I was not aware that was available to the chapters. I will be quiet now and go away.
Rick

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Rick - please don't do anything of the kind! We need your input - If we're doing something that can be improved, we need to know that - and if we have improved something but haven't done a good job of telling people about it, we need to know that, too!

The new EAA sites are a great idea but like some other chapters, our chapter (EAA 2) has a great website and we would like to bypass the EAA site. I logged into out Webs.com hosting but could not find a way to setup a redirect. I have set up several websites with several different hosts and this is the first time I've seen hosting that didn't contain a redirect option in the control panel. Any reason that can't be added? I think that would easily address the issue for those chapters that already have nice sites. That way the EAA directory can still point to http://www.2.eaachapter.org/ but when clicked, the link will auto-redirect to http://www.eaa2.org. This is a standard practice on the web.

or include eaa2.org in an iframe ?

First class site builder! If your chapter site is more functional than you have an amazing I.T. Manager and you should be very proud of it. If you are keeping it just because it took a lot of time to create and you dont want to upset the builder then you should rethink your decision and give this new FREE service a try. Our new site, www.1364.eaachapter.org has already increased our membership and I am meeting with a local un-affiliated aviation club that wants to join our chapter because they like the info and member input on the site.

I finally got access to our chapter's "new" website and was able to add instructions to redirect to our actual web site. But this is still a kludge and really I would like to see better. Is there really some reason why EAA's national database cannot be updated to point to the actual web site for the many chapters that have chosen not to use this new program because they already have perfectly good web sites? At the very least, please make it possible to install an automatic redirect so we don't lose people who don't click through.

Well, I gotta say that when I looked for my current chapter I looked at the EAA official site first - and oddly enough had to then back up once I found the chapter number and then google for it to get the "real" website.

Clicking a link on the "official" EAA placeholder is a heckuvalot less cumbersome.

I thought it best I jump in with a little more information to add to the thread.
By the way, thanks Frank. You’ve found another way to use the locator I hadn’t considered!
While I understand that this solution will not cover every chapter, we feel it is a good program that raises the bar for all chapters. We knew going into the project that there are chapters that have thriving, dynamic web sites and that they would not want to change over to the Webs.com templates. Nels, I can see from your site that transferring the vast information you have compiled on your “official” site would be time consuming and your site is already well arranged.
However, there are many chapters that don’t have someone with your expertise available to them. Many either do not have a site or have a site that is out of date. The Webs program will be of most benefit to them. Web sites can go stale quickly. In fact, I ran across a chapter site a few weeks ago that had not been updated since 2005. The unfortunate part is the chapter is active (I have read their newsletters and I know they fly Young Eagles), but if you judged them by their site, you would think they are an inactive chapter.
There is another audience we are serving, the EAA member who is looking for a quick reference to their local EAA Chapter. For the most part they just want the basic chapter contact information. By the way, this is also useful for our Membership Services Representatives who can quickly locate chapter contact information for members on the phone. The information presented on the Webs landing page will direct interested members to you.
In order to ensure that we have consistent contact information across all of our chapters, we are asking that those chapters with thriving sites that don’t want a Webs.com site to do a couple of things once. 1) Log into the Webs.com site and add your “official” web site link. 2) leave the contact information block intact as it pulls directly from our master database and is updated daily and 3) leave the events block on the landing page (if you are using the EAA Calendar for your events. That’s it. That is all we ask. I know people have to make an additional click to find your site, but I am confident that anyone who is interested enough to search for a chapter will click through to your “official” site.
EAA Chapter 104 has a nice example of a re-direct. www.104.eaachapter.org
Thanks for your consideration and as Hal said earlier, we are always interested in your ideas and feedback.

Steve Buss
EAA Chapters

Hmm, I see my previous response in this thread was deleted. I understand now there's no point in discussing this. However, I do want to point out that you need to do a much better job of informing chapters that participation in this program is mandatory. I checked all the EAA chapters in my area. All have their own web sites, and have for a long time, and none of them have participated in this new program so none of these chapters are currently findable using the chapter finder. I suspect most of these chapters did just as I did and ignored the original announcement about the new hosted web sites because it was not needed and did not realize that we had to participate.

Point taken. We can always do a better job of getting the word out on this project and will follow up with the webmasters list.

Steve

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim Clark

First class site builder! If your chapter site is more functional than you have an amazing I.T. Manager and you should be very proud of it. If you are keeping it just because it took a lot of time to create and you dont want to upset the builder then you should rethink your decision and give this new FREE service a try. Our new site, www.1364.eaachapter.org has already increased our membership and I am meeting with a local un-affiliated aviation club that wants to join our chapter because they like the info and member input on the site.

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I agree! The site builder is easy to use and we were able to set up a nice site in minutes...our first website.
EAA hit a home run with this move!

http://677.eaachapter.org/

Hello,

I am the "webmaster" (I use the term loosely) of Chapter 93's website. The Chapter wanted a simple basic site, and between night school and flying lessons, I have just not had the time to update the site. It looks like I can probably teach some of the less technical members to use the webs.com tool. I'm going to watch the tutorial video, but am wondering, did the Chapter presidents get log in information to webs.com, or do I need to call someone to get that sent to him?

Thanks in advance,

David Ripp
EAA Chapter 93

Hi David -

The login information was sent to all chapters back in June. It was emailed directly to whomever our chapter office had listed as the webmaster, and, if there was none, it was sent to the chapter president.

If neither of you have the email (more than a couple ended up in spam filters) please go here and send us a note and we'll get you taken care of: http://www.support.eaachapter.org/contactus.htm

Thanks -

Hal

Thanks a lot, I'll get in touch with them!

David