When I came to SABR in November, I took up a plan in progress to make it easy for chapters and committees to have effective websites. After some time getting the pieces together and a few sites that I worked with chapters to develop to test the process, I'm ready to invite all SABR groups (committees and chapters) to make use of the tools. Within a year, the current web site at http://sabr.org will be replaced, and the sites I'm describing here will be your way of communicating with members and recording your history, and one way to publish research. We have a fair amount of time to make the change, but I hope you'll contact me soon and start the process.

These tools will help you have a frequently updated, attractive site which will express your group's individual character and also feel like a part of SABR. If you would like a site for your group, I will work with you to determine what you want on the site and where it should go, and get a running site ready to go, then turn it over to you for updates. The sites are hosted on SABR's in-house server and have addresses at http://chapters.sabr.org or http://research.sabr.org.

Most of the information is below, but there is a bit more specific to chapters and committees, and some technical information if you are interested.

Why it's good

The kit allows you to do things with a website that might otherwise be difficult:

• Anyone can post updates or articles, without being an expert
• Keep a blog (whatever "blog" means to you)
  
• List events automatically (mostly for chapters)
  
• Have photo galleries (also mostly for chapters)
  
• Look and feel like a part of SABR (but with a lot of room for creativity)
• Publish the same article in multiple languages

The sites are set up and taken care of by SABR staff, so you don't have to worry about a webmaster losing interest or being too busy to make updates when you need them - you can make them yourself (because it's not hard) or ask me to make them (because that's my job).

How it works

• Send me the content (point me to a website or send me files)
• For committees, we can talk about a way to display research, even if it's more difficult
• I will make a draft
• Work with me on changes
• Get a training session (on editing and adding content and pictures)
  
• Start using the site

What it will allow

In addition to what it will do right away, the software used for the sites will allow you to do more for your members in the future, once the rest of SABR's web presence gets up to speed a bit.

• Members will be able to log in to the site, allowing for
  • Comments, forums
  • Member blogs
  • Members-only content
• The news and research posted on these sites will feed into the main SABR site
• You will be able to post items that appear for members of your group when they first visit the SABR page

These features, like all of the current ones, will be optional. If there's any feature that you'd like that I haven't listed, just ask.

Examples

All of these sites use the same tools you would use for a group site:

• The chapters sites for the Bob Davids and Field of Dreams chapters
• This site (projects.sabr.org)
• The SABR Convention site