hi from UK

[GeoffA]

Just stopping by to say Hi and introduce myself

I live on the south coast of england with my wife, two children, 1 cat and a number of budgies [not mine].

I'm doing a re-design for my church website. The old site can be seen at at www.shorehambaptist.co.uk.

So far i have just done a beta version of the homepage - currently to be seen at www.oakenpage.com/sbs.

I'm following a standards based approach for the design. The home page is designed to load quickly, so is low on graphics. No flash :). The fish logo is a
photo of a mosaic created by one of the girls in the church.

The whole site is intended to be welcoming to non-members, though of course, the act of opening up the church will give members lots of info, but on lower level pages [not yet written].

If you could critique coding and content, I would appreciate your feedback.

thanks

Geoff

[GeoffA]

Ha

wrong address for site to critique!!! :rolleyes:

it's at www.oakenpage.com/sbc

sorry about that

GeoffA

[cwgraves]

Geoff,

Welcome! It's good to know that we can talk about church and ministry websites with someone across the globe!

Tell us a bit about yourself and let me know if I can be of assistance.

Again, welcome and I look forward to some good conversations.

God Bless,

Curtis Graves

[GeoffA]

Curtis

thanks for the reply. Where to start?

well - Shoreham is a small town on the south coast of england, near to Brighton and about 60miles south of London. There 'map' page on the beta version of the Shoreham Baptist Church [SBC, from now on] is now working [www.oakenpage.com/sbc].

It is an old port - there are Roman remains, and also iron age hill forts nearby. However it really came into its own in Norman times [1066AD onwards], when it became one of the leading ship ports, because it is at the mouth of the Adur river. However the town fell on hard times in the 16th century which was compounded when a winter storm shifted the course of the river and took half the town with it! Many of the buildings date back to 17th/18th century - but there is now a lot of modern building. Interestingly the english film industry started here in the 1900's - the light [reflecting of the sea] is good, and the weather frequently fine.

Tthe point of all that history is that Shoreham has a very distinct identity and a strong culture of its own. SBC was started in the 1850's - first meeting were above a butchers shop. It had strong links with Spurgeon, and has always maintained am evangelical basis throughtout those years. One or two familes in the church go right back to that time.

SBC is not a large church [about 100 people, but is lively - we have a lot of young people - and charismatic in orientation]

As to myself, well in the church, I help out in the youth work on friday nights. Work wise, i mainly develop scientifc software [optical design in particular - for designing optical systems - cameras, telescopes, microscopes etc - you can see some of that at www.winlens.de] with a german company. That certainly teaches you the importance of both content and also good user interface!

Over the last year i have started developing websites. I did one years ago using the old table based layout, and that turned me right off - the continual hassles with maintainance! So i was very interested when i came across the standards based approach, using CSS, to seperate content from presentation. This, of course, fits in very naturally with my programming background.

I appreciate the ability this gives you to make good, subtle interfaces, to do easy maintainance etc!

So after reading some books on CSS, i had a go. My first website was for a friend who is a cello teacher [www.cellobabies.co.uk].

anyway - i have been thinking about the church website for a while - it has rather stagnated, and was more for church insiders. Looking at these and other christian forums, convinced me of the importance of the site as a tool for reaching out.

When i chatted with my pastor, he gave me a free hand to go ahead, and so what you see [at the first url] is the initial results.

Most church website are - to be blunt - very home made. Of the rest, a lot seem very commercial - not sure if thats the right word - have the 'corporate' look. I wanted something that was professional but not heartless.

For the SBC site, my aim is to reflect our strong roots in the community and to be orientated toward the outsider - with the gospel being clear, but not driven home with a large club! I like the idea of the 'people stories' approach - some full testimonies but some just a simple resume - may be linking to 'interest' pages.

I'm probably giving a talk on this next sunday - so any feedback would be great.

Looking at the site so far, it seems to me that perhaps i need a bit more 'white space'. I have tried to keep the text well chunked. I dont want to add much more in the way of graphics to the front page, as i want that to load as quick as possible - so the pictures will come on gallery pages.

I'm also planning to do alternate style sheets for low-vision and for PDA users - but that is a little down the road.

well - i guess that is quite enough of me!

Geoff

[mrbelfry]

Hey there

Hi from up north (Manchester) it's good to have someone else on the board who spells colour, favourite and centre right!

Your site looks good. Have you thought about changing the blue at the top to white? The name of your church rings a bell any idea why that could be?

[GeoffA]

Hi and thanks for the welcome

Actually i can only claim two of the three as correct - i normally spell centre as center :)

Perhaps you remember the blockade of Shoreham harbour a couple of years ago [masses of protestors trying to stop sheep being send to france]?

Do you know any more church webmasters in the south - particularly round Brighton. It would be nice to meet them in the flash, so as to speak.

As to the colour, - that is fairly trivial to change, 1 line in the CSS and 1 background to a graphic. i was trying to hint at shorehams location at the sea and where the sun often shines :) . Being trivial, i'll hold on that one for the church to see what they think.

If you have any thoughts on the content....

Geoff