How did we create our new website?

Simon Brown and Rob Corner with the Western Cup trophy 2019.

As a club, we have been considering how we improve our club’s online presence, including through our website.  Given the increased free time some of us had due to the lockdown, we decided this was the perfect opportunity to act on it. A project team led by myself and Mike Ashworth got to work on the site around a month ago, we have been supported by Chris Ross as a link with the board and a range of other members who have provided technical support.

One of our key objectives has been developing a site that is user friendly and allows us to emphasise the club’s strengths. We were in agreement that the main priority had to be representing the club as a whole, including the playing side and the community we have around Hamilton Crescent.  

The development of the site has involved a range of consultation and engagement with experts and key stakeholders at the club. We met with web developers to gauge the scale of the task ahead and the challenges we would face. We then tried some different ideas and settled on SquareSpace as the platform because it is easy to use and allowed us to demonstrate the breadth of activity at the club. 

Squarespace has been an ideal platform to work from, it has an incredibly user friendly interface which makes it a great solution for a range of members to access. Mike, Chris and I all had very minimal or no web design experience and this rarely became a barrier to complete any work. 

I have led on the design and build of the website after Mike had come up with a general structure. The process is fairly simple yet extremely time consuming! We have found that the more work we do, the more things you think of adding and soon the website becomes quite big.

Throughout the process, we have sought feedback and input from other members at the club. As the main contributors, we have a clear idea of what we think the club is about. But our wider community is diverse and we were keen to ensure we represented everyone. We have had regular interaction with the Board of Directors to ensure all the functions of the club were represented. We have engaged with players from across the senior and women’s set up as well as the junior section. In all around 30 people have provided comments and feedback. Some have been involved in the day to day running of the club and others have no association with the club at all. All have provided vital feedback that has really strengthened the site. We are confident that it represents all sections of the club and meets the needs of all potential users. 

The development has not been without challenges, but we have all enjoyed the process and are proud of how it represents our club and the people that make it special. Thank you to all who have supported the development of the site, in particular Mike and Chris. Your input has been invaluable. 

The website at the moment isn’t the finished article, there is a heap of exciting content to be added which I look forward to doing over the coming months. Included in these plans are vital components such as results, statistics and scorecards once an online format for these have been decided on. Luckily, it appears we will have plenty of time to get this up and running!

If you are keen to get involved in supporting our content development or in volunteering with the club in any way, then please visit our volunteer page and see how you can get involved. 

Got feedback or an idea for our website?

You can give feedback or tell us your ideas using the form here. Thank you!