Earlier this year the Committee for the Midlands branch decided that it was time to consider the development of a Branch web site for member use; so a brief was developed.
“We wanted a web site that would tell people about the APM and the Midlands branch and in particular about the events going on in and around the Midlands region” said John Faiers (outgoing Chairman).
The site had to be easy to maintain and keep up to date and have the option to include an email list server to improve branch communications to APM members and so a costed proposal for the branch web site was drawn up for review by the branch.
“The proposal was appraised both technically and commercially and was found to be comprehensive, technically well constructed and above all good value for money” commented Vic Simons (branch Treasurer).
In designing the web site consideration was given to the features necessary to make the web site easy to update by a distributed authorship without the need to return to the supplier for updates.
Each Chapter now has a dedicated webmaster responsible for managing and maintaining their pages. Mike Pegg, Staffordshire chapter webmaster says “the content management tool used to edit the web site is easy to use. After installation I updated our events and contact list without the need to refer to the tutorial provided.”
The site also has an email list server which provides email list facilities for the chapters and for the branch as a whole. Site visitors can subscribe to one or more of the publicity lists to be kept informed of all the latest news and events for the branch and any chapter they are interested in.
John Gordon has experience with the email lists used by other similar organisations and provided vital information in the development and testing of these lists. “We now have facilities similar in standard to those used by the largest professional bodies” he said.
The site incorporates current APM branding and according to Scott Walkinshaw, APM Head of Marketing “it is state of the art” while meeting current compliancy standards for web design.
