Hello Ken, lost my internet connection as I hit 'save' a moment ago, so don't think my comment will have reached you. Thanks for initiating this discussion. I've found it most helpful in my preliminary work to get my club's website up to speed. Watch this spot. Meantime, greetings from the Rotary Club of Newlands, in Cape Town, South Africa. Yours in Rotary, Janey

This is the problem with a small group of (mostly older I'll bet) people whose computer literacy may be marginal and who feel uncomfortable using the technology. Also, Rotary sites always seem aimed at the members (rightly to a degree) but hold little if any interest to potential members or others in the community. If I was to try to do a site again it would have to have a broader community focus with a small private area for members. Offer forums for various age groups, encourage input from local council (and councillors, updates on community activities, sell or provide advertising space to local merchants, provide a search engine feature etc, all the while promoting Rotary. Anything to get people OTHER THAN local Rotarians to visit the site would be my aim. A lot of work though which would need to be shared. Great jobs for the membership committee!

Here are some of the suggestions: 1. Present your site to them in one of your meeting. 2. For those who were absent they can check the site for the updates and probably be a make up for them. 3. Send out email update to them if there are new post in your site since people for got the website address and if their is a link that would be easier to go to. 4. Make an award/recognition system.. 5. Also check who among your members have access to internet.. then encourage them to promote the club website to others especially your project partners and also have links with other rotary clubs that have a website (like sister club on the net). So that they can also see whats going on. Dann Diez RC Mandaue North D3860, Philippines

Hi Ken. Thanks for your input. I agree with Jesse, This is a common problem. The main thing is to have some attraction on the website. If you are going to have the 25 members revisit your site you need to think about how will the site benefit my members? What do they need? What gives them a reason to come back to the website? You need to constantly have something new and interesting on the site. You also need to be able to grab their attention within just a few seconds ones they visit. This can be a bit tricky. To be able to do all this you need to keep creating content, news, or something that has the ability to renew it self. In my opinion that is a lot of hard work for only 25 members, it is a lot of hard work even for 2500 members. So my suggestion is to connect to Digaria and then take a look at what are the individual needs for your club, think: meetings, news about your projects and things that are relevant to your club and keep them updated. Then you use the network Digaria to get some more attention to your website, your club, your projects. The goal with Digaria is to bridge the Digital Divide, and it will result in far more exposure not only for the individual members/clubs and Rotary as a whole but it will attract attention of search engines, media and last but not least it will attract new prospect members to your club, your projects. That is the real power of networks, both online and offline. An individual trying to change the world, will have a hard time doing that on his own. A network of individuals will have a greater success. To help get your own club members to use the site as I said before can be a difficult task. But if you can show them why and how and slowly get them to realize that there is something interesting going on not only on your site but in the rest of the world as well I think you will get them to use the site. 25 people; you can bring your laptop and show them at a meeting, walk them trough how to use the site. Where

Hi Ken, your question is a common one - You've done a great job with the content management and the site too! Rotary really needs some nudging to reach into the communications systems of the next generation and you're helping a pave that future. One thing I know I can recommend is talking to Geof Lambert or better still, Magnus Gunnlaugsson. Magnus is helping clubs get involved online here in Digaria in a few important ways. Magnus is able to both help your club get listed here, but also the listing can become part of your own club website -- This has two profound effects. 1) Is that it brings social networking, blogs and events with online RSVP that make a site fun, useful and valuable to users who visit. 2) This connects your site into the larger Rotary community, worldwide. Members, Events, Articles and other information is available at your club site, but also listed in the main community. This makes a 'cloud' of interconnected websites that brings more search engine attention to everyone and also shares the information with everyone in Rotary all at once. It makes use of your existing club site, brings more member features and provides new ways to communicate, like video blogs and video podcasts that are exciting and perhaps most importantly, are the communication of choice for younger people. This brings a whole new generation to Rotary and archives valuable content generated by Rotarians across the globe at the same time! I'll send you an introduction so you can connect with Magnus directly.

That is a good obervation Ken, one I am sure many Rotary clubs around the world face. I think it is a matter of "critical mass"....25 people (esp. with the demographic of Rotarian) does not consititue much of a critical mass in the Internet world. That is one of the reasons for the development of Digaria, so that rather have 25 to 75 people (size of a typical Rotary club) as the center of the critical mass of potential contributors and users of the site you have 10's of thousands or perhaps even hundreds of thousands. Keep in mind it took Rotary International about 80 years to have 1 million members. MySpace.com adds about 1 million profiles every WEEK!!!