Club website

[The Bowler Hatted Turner]

Following our club AGM in February we now have a new webmaster. He is going to re do some of the website but is having difficulties with parts of it. I said I would ask the question here.....what hosting and or platform (?) do other clubs use. I don't think we need anything clever or complicated just a simple website that as and when would be easy to hand over to the next club webmaster.

[Twisted Trees]

I would recommend Wordpress, I host multiple websites for woodturners 3 of them with no web experience at all, with a bit of help from me have created their own sites recently all with about a weeks of studying Wordpress on the internet and getting a start. i.e. once created then it can be handed over to another who will quickly be able to maintain it. the 3 sites my users have created are:-

https://heartwoodturning.woodturners.uk/
https://heckingtonarts.woodturners.uk/
https://skkrafts.woodturners.uk/

As I said none of these 3 had any experience, each was given about 3 hours of my time to get them started then told to go and play with it.

EDIT:- Wordpress is a fairly common industry standard, so an added bonus of using it is if someone gets good there is potential to monetise it down the line, with employment opportunities which may get you some assistance from friends and family of club members rather than the one who didn't take one step back quick enough!

[The Bowler Hatted Turner]

Pete thanks for this. I agree about Wordpress, indeed I use it on my own website. I was just wondering if there were other "decent" alternatives.

[Paul Hannaby]

Joomla is probably the next on the list but Wordpress is the most commonly used out of all the content management systems.

Hosting is available from many sources but whichever one you use, you will need one that offers a database as well as the web space. I use Ionos for the two club's websites I manage. It has all the options needed plus several which probably aren't! It's also reasonably priced for a single website.

If you need any help/advice, feel free to give me a call.

[Valkrider]

AS has already been said Wordpress accounts for nearly 50% of the sites on the internet. It does need some understanding to make the site secure from hackers and does need to be updated regularly. Wix seems to be gaining more users as does Squarespace, however, Wordpress would be my suggestion. It is what is used for the AWGB websites.

[Twisted Trees]

For hosting I use Krystal https://krystal.io/hosting £84 a year (VAT Included) no fuss and reliable for one site, daily backup and database included, but you have to run it yourself. I use the multi site package and share it out with others. If a few in your club have websites that may be an option for you price wise.

Alternatively if you want a fully managed system it is £180 a year. As I am sure you are aware be careful of those that offer a monthly payment with massive introductory discounts for the first year there are a lot of them, and the second year can get expensive.

[Duncan A]

As do many others, we use Wordpress for the West Northants Woodturners website.
It is easily portable to the majority of website hosts (not always true of the lesser known platforms), has loads of add-ons, good support, and is quite simple to use, if somewhat lacking in bells and whistles (in the free version).
It also automatically resizes the screen layout so that it works properly across PC's, tablets and smartphones.

For hosting, we use Netnerd which cost £68 inc Vat last year for their Unlimited package and domain renewal. It suits us well and, on the very rare occasions that I've had a need to contact them, I've had a prompt, helpful and sensible reply from them.

Duncan

[The Bowler Hatted Turner]

Thanks all for your replies, I will point our webmaster in this direction.