The Rotary Club of Santa Monica envisioned setting up a website in 1999 under the leadership of former president Jack Siegal. Meetings were held with various members of the club to help determine the goals in setting up this website. The major goals were to:
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help promote the Rotary Club of Santa Monica, Rotary District 5280,and Rotary International |
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help with new member promotion |
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to show every member participating in a project of the organization, along with their picture and a caption of explanation |
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feature new members and help them quickly feel a part of our organization. |
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help with the member retention of the organization |
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make this website a place where members can go as a first source in getting reliable and up-to-date information |
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increase the attendance of the club |
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most importantly to create a project that is fun, and involves a lot of members. |
We believe that this website has accomplished the goals originally set out for it. We currently have approximately over 2,000 pictures of members participating in activities of the club, as well as with over 560 pages of editorial information. Visitors to our web site are first greeted by our home page, welcoming them to the Rotary Club of Santa Monica with a scrolling marquee showing current events, headlines, notes of interest, etc. Additionally, another marquee is “hyper-linking” readers to pictures of current meetings and relevant club events. The marquees are constantly changing and updated on a minimum weekly basis.
From our home page, readers can be directed to fourteen different sections. Of the fourteen, one of the notable sections is the "Calendar of Events." The Calendar of Events provides timely information to members regarding our organization’s current events, and includes pictures, bios and other information pertaining to luncheon speakers, upcoming projects, and Rotary District and International events. Weekly meeting attendance increased dramatically when the website was created for 2001/2002 year, and we believe that increased meeting attendance has, in part, a good deal to do with the timely information that is provided here on the website.
Another notable section includes links to the club’s weekly newsletter the "RotaMonica." Starting in 2006, the RotaMonica has been distributed electronically although we still mail hard copy versions to members who prefer. The In the News page was also enhanced in 2007 with real time automated news feeds from the Rotary International web site.
The “Committees” section shows various areas of responsibility in the club, giving detailed information on our 40 or so committees and every planned project. The two sections that really show the community what we accomplish are the “Helping our Youth” section and “Our Community” section. So far, these sections include pictures and relevant information on over 20 current and past projects.
One of the most entertaining sections is the “Having Fun” page, which highlights numerous projects and functions where Rotarians were caught developing relationships and just having fun. Such events range from our 80th and 85th anniversary parties and golf tournament to a party honoring our esteemed First Lady of Rotary, Esther Johnson. The coverage of most events includes not only pictures, but also a summary of the event and humorous captions next to each image.
The website currently creates a lot of work for a lot of Rotarians. It calls upon all of its committee members to submit pictures and summaries of their events on a “timely” basis, and places demands upon the computer skills of the various members who help design the website and maintain on the continued success of this project.
Promotion of the website is done through its listings in our weekly newsletter, weekly promotions from our president referring all members to the website for upcoming events, and listings in various search engines such as "Yahoo!" and "Google."
As a final bonus, our website was awarded the "Club of Distinction" honors for Large Clubs from our Rotary District 5280.
In summary, there are over a dozen members who have participated in the production of this website. We have showed continued growth in our web skills, and created a place where Rotarians can go and get up-to-date information regarding our club. We feel that there is no other place available that can provide more information about the Rotary Club of Santa Monica. So if you are a member who likes to fool around with computers, digital cameras, likes to write, likes to have fun, or just wants to learn a little more about the Internet I would love to have you on the committee.
---Larry Maher and Jim Dyer, Your Web Masters: LHMCPA@AOL.COM and jim.dyer@rotaryclubofsantamonica.org