Why does your scout troop need an online presence?
- Better Communication
- Photo Sharing
- Social Community Capabilities
- Record Maintenance
Many of the companies that offer troop websites at a low cost limit your ability to make the site what you want it to be. Scout troops are not cookie cutter. Scout troops do not typically have the funds available to hire someone to create and maintain a website for them. Thats where Cannon's Design comes in!
As a registered Girl Scout and Boy Scout adult, I have personally maintained websites for my children's cub scout, boy scout, girl scout and girl scout service area. Cannon's Design can help you have a website that will give you the control. After we set your site up, we will be available to assist in maintenance if needed but the ultimate goal is for it to be easy for you to do. Plans change, announcements need to be made, requirement tracking needs to be done. These are all things that you and other leaders within your troop should be able to do daily.
Youth protection requirements are designed to protect our children but you'd still like to be able to share files and photos easily. With our sites, you can give your members a secure login so that you can share as you want but not be concerned about who else has found your site and is looking.
The event planning and calendar functions help you to keep everyone informed of upcoming events and helps you to know who to expect at what event. There is a signup feature associated with events that allows your scout families to let you know easily who will be there. This can be combined with online payment of fees even. Email reminders to all your scouts at an interval prior to an event that you set. If you're going camping next weekend and you need to remind everyone a week before, set a reminder and even include the requirements if you want. If you're working on knots at the meeting next week and you need everyone to bring rope, set a reminder for 2-3 days prior to the meeting and everyone will get an email. This saves you and your other volunteers time making dozens of phone calls!
Requirement tracking is probably one of the hardest things to keep accurate for a leader. I know in my Girl Scout troop, I have three different adults that are responsible for different areas. Each of them has records for her badges and achievements. With our website, each logs in and records information. It is all stored in a central location and is accesible to all leaders. In Cub Scouts, each den leader logged in, recorded his or her information and then the advancement chair for the pack had access to all records in one place. That is sure easier than each den leader tracking and then having to send a report to the chair to make sure all boys were recognized correctly.
Most teenagers are using Facebook or MySpace to network with their peers. With the social community abilities from our sites, the Patrol Leaders Council has their own chat room that they can log in to and conduct a meeting remotely. Lots easier than getting them all together at one location! Share pictures, ask questions in the forum, discuss badge requirements, notify others about what you're working on - all these are things that kids do daily with their current social sites; give them the opportunity to have a safe, scouts only place to do that.
There are many reasons why your troop may want or need an online presence. As I mentioned before, scouting is an important part of my life as well as those of my children. I know that when I started in scouting and was looking for a way to bring our troop online, the possibilities that I found were either not what I had in mind or were too expensive. Over the years, I have developed an online presence that I think works well for us. Scout troops are not all the same so their websites should not be either. Our sites give you the flexibilty that your troop needs. Features can be disabled or enabled as needed. The look and feel of the site can be pretty much any way you want it to be.
I create and host sites for $10.00 per month plus a one time set up fee of $125. If you already have a domain name, I will deduct $10.00 from that set up fee. Contact Me to discuss your troop's needs and to get started. I look forward to working with you to create and online experience that will enhance scouting for your youth!
