May 25, 2006
Dear Everyone:
Time flies when you don’t keep a gun to its head.
Last September, when the Board of Directors of the Mt Diablo chapter of ARMA (Association of Records Managers and Administrators) met, we agreed that we had to do something about our website (www.arma-sfbay.org). It was pretty pathetic, didn’t really have a good webmaster, and looked amateurish.
So we did what most organizations do: We formed a committee. “Ben” volunteered to be the Chair. “Clancy”, the “former” webmaster and I made up the rest of the committee. I had a line on a “professional” webmaster, someone I had known at work, who had left for personal reasons, and who I expected could use a little extra cash for a few hours work each month.
We didn’t need much. Monthly announcements of the upcoming meetings. List of the Board of Directors. Occasional posting of jobs in search of Records Managers.
But with “Ben” in
However, before I could set this up, I needed to get permission from my supervisor. He, naturally, wanted to know how much it would cost. So I did some investigating and found out that the phone bridge (voice) cost four cents per minute. The web part (data) cost six cents per minute. So both together cost ten cents per minute. That meant if we talked for a full hour, it would cost my department $6.00.
“You spent more than that doing the research,” said my boss. And gave the OK.
So I set up the meeting and we all got “together” and agreed on what we wanted in a “new-and-improved” website and how much the Chapter would pay per hour and so on. The whole thing cost less than $6.00.
That was back in October. In November, we found a generic contract that we could use and sent it off to the webmaster. The webmaster sent some mockups of what the new website would look like. And we were off.
Or so we thought. I heard through a contact that the webmaster had some problems at home. Her mother, who lives in another state, became ill, requiring monthly visits. Her father-in-law also got sick. We in the Chapter waited patiently.
And waited. And waited.
Finally, I got word that her father-in-law had passed away. It didn’t look like our webmaster was going to be able to help us after all. I got ready to call her a few weekends ago, when I found out that Saturday was the special memorial service for the father-in-law and Sunday was her son’s birthday party.
So I finally called her at home that Monday and she admitted that she really hadn’t done anything since last November. I told her she was off the hook and to feel better.
Through another contact, I found another webmaster,
a contractor who does work for the company even though he lives in
southern
And then we waited. Again.
I spoke with the Committee Chairman last night at the May dinner meeting, and told him I would contact the new webmaster today. Before I could do that, he sent me a message at around 6:00 this morning, responding to a job posting I had requested yesterday.
This set off a small flurry of email messages from “Clancy”, “Ben” and the webmaster. The flurry quickly grew into a genuine snowstorm. By the time I left work a little after 4:00 this afternoon, I had 31 new messages in my “website” folder.
It looks like we might actually get off the ground with this new website soon. Just in time for the fiscal 2005-2006 year to end next month. On the plus side, we’ll have the same Board of Directors as last year. With a much cooler website.
Love, as always,
Pete
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