The website is functionally about 90% complete. There's still work to be done on a few elements and I'm looking for a better document management system than the one currently in use - That's the part that handles the Trestleboard pdf files, printable forms, and some other bits and pieces.
Although some tuneup work remains to be done, I would like to take this opportunity to get feedback on what's been done so far. From both a technical and site layout perspective and a site "look and feel" perspective. This is our site, the Mercer Lodge's face to both our members and the world and, as such, represents the first look many of the upcoming generations of Masonry will get at our ancient craft.
I have tried throughout to keep the same sense of layout and design that our previous webmaster was using while updating the look and separating the technical nuts and bolts of programming from the entering of events, articles, and all the other good stuff that goes into a website. The current framework (called a Content Management System or CMS) allows us to do far more with its power than we are currently using and I'll definitely be adding more as we dream it up.
Some of the many things that are now possible:
- Blogs - Short for Web Log - essentially a publicly accessible online diary
- Team Sites - Subsites that let our committees coordinate actions and exchange new ideas
- Dynamic Articles - Any person that has a login can submit an article to be included anywhere we want
- Polls - In true Masonic tradition, we can put up polls for our members to to vote on
- Multiple categorized picture galleries - Think photo albums for all those pictures we have stashed away
Now that the technical bones are mostly there, I need your help to fill in the meat. What is needed are people to submit articles - both news and informational about the masons. We need pictures added to the galleries, captions filled in and everything organized. We need the event calendar entered for the upcoming months so our users can see what's going on.
The only restriction as to content is that it should be related to the Masons or one of our affiliated groups and, as access to read the site is not restricted in any way at this point in time, any submission should not contain any of the secrets of our craft.
Any feedback should be submitted through the Contacts link on the left of the home page to the feedback link.
Thanks and I'm looking forward to working with you 
Jeff Alexander - Webmaster
