Another web project

Today, I went to my first real Master Gardeners committee meeting: the Web Team. I managed exactly zero days between signing up for the program and the committee. Given that the tasks of the committee once again couples two interests of mine, both being on the committee and doing the development work is a ridiculously easy way for me to earn my 100 volunteer hours.

The meeting was held at Apple, in one of the back conference rooms. There were nine of us there: John, Bart, Bracey, Bob, Abby, Karyn, Vera, Allen and me, each of various technical experience. Several people where technically inclined, but don't yet have the experience building sites.

At first, I was concerned that there were nine people in the room, indicating there were probably 12 people on the committee. From my experience, the larger the committee, the fewer people actually do tasks assigned from the committee. In this case, however, my fears were unfounded, as everyone had something to contribute, with opinions closely matching so discussions weren't long, ambling and off-course.

Listening to the group, it was pretty obvious they knew what they wanted for a public facing website (the members-only website being okay at the moment), they just didn't know how to get there. I wrote down each time someone mentioned a particular feature, if only in passing, and was able to summarize them, taking many breathes as I ran down the list of 20+ features, near the end of the meeting. Many are easy enough to do, some less so and will take work.

The project should be fairly easy to do, I just need to find time to do it. After my UCPC talk next weekend will be a great time to start cranking on it.