A website for your parish or organisation

Last updated 19 November 2008

In a nutshell...

Use Google Sites to build a free website.
Make sure your parish council gives you the OK.
Read the guidelines below about content - especially about privacy.
Tell us the web address for your site so we can link to it from the diocesan website.

Why have a website?

To improve communication with other Anglicans, especially within the parish or organisation and the diocese.
To increase the sense of community and belonging for members of the parish and organisation.
To tell the local and global community about the parish or organisation.
To serve Tasmanians better by being more accessible to them.
To 'grow' your parish or organisation.
You may have more aims than this, but one will be enough. As long as you know what it is!

What do we have to do to get a website?

Talk about it with people in your parish or organisation.
Know why you want a website. (If you don't have good reasons then you probably don't need one.)
Read the guidelines (below) and be sure you understand them and agree with them.
Choose someone who wants to be the website representative for at least a year. This person will need to communicate with whoever creates the site and make sure the site stays up to date.
Arrange for someone to create and maintain your site.
Send the URL (web address) to the diocesan webmaster so she can place a link to your site from the diocesan site.

Can you recommend someone who can create and maintain a website for us?

We can, but it will be expensive. A small, basic website built by a professional is usually a few thousand dollars.

What is included in the cost?

creation of the site (the bulk of the cost)
registration of a domain name (up to $55 per year)
hosting for one year (about $330 per year for a small site)
updating, maintenance and small changes for a year (This is usually part of the deal but if your site needs regular updating and changes you should expect to pay extra.)

What if someone in your parish or organisation can create the website?

Creating a good website takes a lot of time, knowledge and experience.
If there's someone with the time and the skills to do it in your parish or organisation then that's great. But realise you are asking them to undertake a serious commitment to finish the site in a timely manner and to keep it up to date.

But you can have a FREE site!

There are many options on the web to create a cheap or free site. Many of these are supported by advertising over which you have no control - so we do not recommend them.

Recently Google has created an excellent free website building tool with many features that make it ideal for a small organisation like a parish.
Here's a tiny example which took less than half an hour to build. But expect to spend many hours on a project like this if it is to be seriously useful to your parish and organisation.
Go to Google Sites to find out more.

Guidelines for parish and organisation websites

Questions, advice, help...!

Ask Sheelagh Wegman.

If you already have a website...

If your parish or organisation already has a website then please bear in mind the spirit of these guidelines when building or updating your site, especially with regard to content and copyright.
If you already have a number of pages especially for your parish or organisation on the diocesan website (this site you're viewing now) then you are at liberty to leave things as they are. Or, if you wish to develop an independent website then when it's ready your old pages can be removed from the diocesan site and a link placed to your new site.

What do these words mean?

content - text, images and anything else placed on the site
domain name - the part of a web address that comes after the www. and before the next forward slash, e.g. the domain name for the Diocese of Tasmania which is used for this site is anglicantas.org.au
home page - the top level document of a set of web pages. Usually it's the first web page that appears in your browser when you visit a website. All other web pages in the site should be linked to the home page. A home page is not a website, it's one page in a website, usually the most important one.
hosting - placing a site in a computer that is linked to the Internet so people can view the site using a web browser, e.g. Explorer. This service is usually supplied by an ISP (Internet Service Provider).
redelegation - setting things up so when someone enters a domain name in a browser's address box they are taken to another domain. Click on this link for an example: www.apok.org The person who has registered your domain name or your ISP can set this up for you.
redirection - arranging for messages to one email address to be delivered to another email address, e.g. secretary@anglicanparishofmarshtown.org to go to myspecialname@bigpond.com Note that if you do this you need to create an appropriate 'personality' with your email software so you can reply to messages using the appropriate email address. Someone who uses email a lot can show you how to do this.
publish - place on the site
website - more correctly Web site - a collection of web pages which standalone and have common navigation.

Representative's duties

Involve other people, including leaders in your parish or organisation, in working out why you want a website and what you will put on it.
Check email regularly.
Be proactive about getting content for your site.
Ensure that there is someone who will produce or obtain text content and someone who will produce image content for your site. It's OK if it's the same person. It's OK if the representative does this. But it's good to spread the load, if possible.
Regularly review the site and talk about it with other people.
Edit text content as necessary.
Send content (text and images) by email to the person who looks after the website.
Tell the diocesan webmaster that you are the representative.
Inform the diocesan webmaster of significant changes to your site or to information on it that has diocese-wide significance.

Important:

If your website is maintained by a member of your parish or organisation it is essential that the representative has a copy of the following information, knows what it means and knows what to do about it if necessary:

name and URL of the domain name registrar
email address, username and password required to renew registration of the domain name
email address, username and password required to modify the domain name servers
name and URL of the host
email address, username and password required to communicate with the host
hostname, username and password required to ftp to the server on which the site is hosted

This ensures that if your voluntary webmaster leaves your parish or organisation then you will be able to continue to control your website.

This information should be kept in a safe and secure place, preferrably in an encrypted, multiply backed-up file. Otherwise it should be printed and stored under lock and key in an appropriate place on your official premises.

If your website is maintained by a professional it is wise to ensure that they are able to provide this information to you at any time. It's your website. Don't lose control of it.

Pass on all relevant information to the person who succeeds you as representative.

If your website is maintained by a member of your parish or organisation

name and URL of the domain name registrar
email address, username and password required to renew registration of the domain name
email address, username and password required to modify the domain name servers
name and URL of the host
email address, username and password required to communicate with the host
hostname, username and password required to ftp to the server on which the site is hosted

This ensures that if your voluntary webmaster leaves your parish or organisation then you will be able to continue to control your website. This information should be kept in a safe and secure place, preferrably in an encrypted, multiply backed-up file. Otherwise it should be printed and stored under lock and key in an appropriate place on your official premises. If your website is maintained by a professional it is wise to ensure that they are able to provide this information to you at any time. It's your website. Don't lose control of it.

Content

As well as basic information about the parish or organisation it is desirable to have a news section, or for news to be on the home page.
Content should not conflict with anything on the diocesan website.
If you are not sure about the suitability of content, in the first instance ask the Diocesan Web Site Editor for advice.
The Rt Revd John HarrowerBishop[person] has the final say about content.

Confidentiality, safety and privacy

Images of adults may be identified but in most cases images of children should not be identified by given name or family name.
Contact information must not be provided for people under the age of 18.
It must not be possible to infer contact information for people under the age of 18. For example, don't name the rector's children if the rector's contact information is on the site.
Don't publish anything about anyone if you are not sure they would be entirely comfortable about its being on the site. When in doubt, ask them. If still in doubt, don't publish it.
In most cases, you don't need the subject's permission to publish a photograph - but if you are not sure how they would feel about it then ask.
Understand that occasionally the diocesan website editor might seek permission from you to put content from your site on the diocesan site, e.g. a great photo or an interesting article.

Updating

Please update your site regularly, preferrably at least once a month.

Copyright

Copyright for content resides in the first instance with the person who created the content, otherwise it resides with the parish or organisation.
Strictly observe the relevant laws of copyright.
Do not publish anything you do not have permission to publish.
Do not copy anything from another website unless you have written permission to do so.

Domain name

The domain name should accurately identify the client, e.g. anglicanparishofwoopwoop.org is better than trendylocalchristians.com
.org is preferred to .com because it suggests a nonprofit organisation.
Other appropriate top level domain names are .info, .ws and .as.au
Although .org.au registration is free it can be difficult and take a long time.

Hosting

Free hosting with associated advertising is not permitted.
If you need advice about how to choose an Internet Service Provider to host your website then ask us.

Listing on search engines

You don't have to do this, but ...

You are free to list your site on search engines and directories.
You may ask the person who creates or maintains your website to do it for you.

Because your site will be linked from the diocesan site then eventually it will be able to be found on most major free search engines and directories.

Anglican Church in Tasmania