Scott’s Spiel

Personally, I would say the internet is one of the most important mediums these days. Access is almost national and an organisation that didn’t have a web site would probably look rather silly. I’m sure most people would agree with me so far.

I wish St Andrew’s would.

The main site is pretty decent, a few technical errors but the content is good and pretty up to date. It provides a reasonably welcoming approach to volunteering and details of where people can go to find out more.

If you move from here onto the Glasgow Executive site then already the colours have changed, layout is different and personally it just doesn’t look as good. However, you’re going to have difficulties getting there anyway as the main page does not link to the Exec one. This sublevel is also not quite as up to date and certainly doesn’t have a very welcoming spiel for potential volunteers.

If we go even deeper into the actual company level, you’ll only find a few with proper web sites. Even then there are those with web sites and they have no incoming links. At this stage the layout resembles nothing of the main page and could be way out of date. The majority of them have no attraction for potential volunteers save perhaps an email address.

Ideally there should be some uniformity. I’d also like to see the same colours preserved across the sites, making it obvious that they’re all St Andrew’s. Further, there should be a contact form, as well as an email address, for potential volunteers. Further things such as calendars (which need to be up to date or are pointless) and pictures do nothing but add depth and hopefully spark interest.

I feel that St Andrew’s is very much an “old man’s” company. It’s resisting change as much as possible by sticking to phone numbers and sparse web sites (amongst other things). If it was to modernise just a little bit, it may bring in younger members who’re more enthusiastic about doing duties.

I really like the Grampian site - it looks by a large a lot more professional than the others and yet isn’t difficult to use. It’s also up to date (ish) and has a generally inviting feel (you can disagree with me if you like).

However my favourite so far has to go the Durham LINKS site. It’s a St John’s page so I’m slightly cheating a bit but to me it’s using the net to its best.

I have volunteered to help my company with the website but I’ve got no response. Maybe that’s a good thing as I’d be overly tempted to turn it into more than it probably should be. Then again, since our latest member found us on the web (though not the company site) maybe I’ve got a decent point?