Evolution of the MD'A' web site

[mdalions]

Hello Lions.

I am sending this message to District Technology Chairs if I could find the name and address, and/or to District webmasters, or if I could find neither of those, to the most interested Lion I could think of in the District. If you are not interested, or do not have the time to enter into a dialogue about the future of electronic communications within the Multiple District, let me know and I will remove your e-mail address from this list.

Now on to the reason for my message. As you most likely know, the MD"A" office location no longer exists - MD"A" now operates from "virtual offices" in the homes of the officers of the Multiple. Because of this, electronic communications are more important than ever, and the MD"A" web site needs to change to provide a "hub" to promote communication, whether by providing information on a web page, by hosting e-mail lists, bulletin boards, "chat" facilities and "Help Desks", or by supplying e-mail boxes or e-mail address redirection.

Are any of you interested, or do you know anyone who is interested, in helping to ensure MD"A" serves its constituents well? The web site is now no longer under the auspices of the MD"A" Promotion Committee, and will now apparently be a committee unto itself - perhaps a Multiple District Technology Committee - Council Chair-elect Dan Davis will be determining exactly what transpires. In any case, we need several interested and talented Lions to help make this happen, and to keep me on track - the committee needs 2 members in addition to a chair. This is not a committee to "meet and talk". It is a committee to plan, design and "do".

I would really like the members of the committee to have clear ideas on what we can do to make the MD"A" communications facilities an excellent tool, or group of tools. We need to make use of current technology - databases, dynamic web pages, common page templates and style sheets, distributed updating of information, etc. We need some "dedicated amateurs" in electronic web communication technology - and a dedicated professional would be welcome.

[I may send this again using a real mailing list if some of the addressees block this message using Bcc: addressing with spam filters.]

Yours in Lionism,
Lion Ted.