Target readership:

Deanery Churchgoers and nearby churchgoers: events.

Church officers and volunteers: connection with resources and those doing similar functions.

Synod members: synod documents and meetings.

Seekers: should feel immediately welcomed and directed to suitable church contact and support if they come across the website in their search for a church or anything we advertise.

Anyone else interested: should be able to find out what we do and whom to contact for whatever their interest is.

Not targeted: those without any interest; although if they stumble across the website it should be more appealing than off-putting.

Design principles

	1.	Simplicity
	2.	Economy of upkeep in labour and money
	3.	Link to original sources that are updated for us wherever possible instead of duplicating information
	4.	Forward looking so don't worry too much about maintaining compatibility with old browsers at the expense of simplicity; expect our readership to become increasingly conversant with and dependent on technology
	5.	Flexibility to pick the best solution for each element of the website rather than hope to find an all encompassing package and be constrained by what it offers: with the speed at which the web develops, packages quickly get dated. What was good and well integrated soon becomes a constraining legacy system needing porting to a new package. With separate choices for each element I expect they will stay front-runners for longer and if we want to upgrade to a new system to take advantage of new features, just those elements which need changing can be ported to a new system without upsetting the rest.

I started by noting that there were few deanery websites and those I found were out of date and failed to contain much of use or interest. They appeared to have been started by someone with some enthusiasm to make a website for the deanery but without upkeep or much thought as to the content.  I took these sites as a warning and wondered what we could do that would be as simple as possible to maintain and yet be useful.  (Since then I have found a few better deanery websites, but the warning is still pertinent).

A list of parishes with links to the church websites provide access to most of the information people need and the parishes tend to keep their websites reasonably up to date.  We don't have to duplicate their efforts and would fail if we tried as we wouldn't learn of all the changes.  (I personally use the links a lot as they are much easier to go through than googling each in turn and trying to remember to include every parish). 

Calendars of events for the deanery only needs feeds from church calendars where available and events added to our own calendar. 

A twitter feed provides an alternative way of promulgating messages for anyone who likes it and is automatically then on the website.  

A forum can link people with shared interests.

We need to find a way to overcome privacy and data protection concerns about publishing synod members' contact information.  Changes to nomination forms and a remailer or contact form could help.

I have put together a summary of regular services.  This does have to be maintained manually, but at least the main services don't change very often.  The full joint calendar of the churches is self-maintaining and also lists some of these services, but only a few parishes have public ical feeds so that calendar is not currently sufficient to show all main services.  Attending these services is a good way to get to know the deanery so I consider this important enough to justify the maintenance effort.

Documents can automatically be listed and viewed if uploaded to a directory with .htaccess settings to allow its contents to be listed.

Although website packages can help construct a site easily, they also impose complexities and restrictions.  If at least part of the website allows direct control of the source code, we can avoid restrictions.  But I am keen not to get stuck with a site which is difficult to update, and I realise that having the freedom to edit source code raises the expertise required considerably!  Finding the best solution to provide flexibility and ease of maintenance is something I would appreciate some help with working out.