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Coordinator: Doug Fitzsimmons; 519-824-7836
Backup Coordinators: Jim Anderson, 519-822-3589, and David West,
519-829-2810
Webmaster: Doug
Fitzsimmons; 519-824-7836
Schedule: Meetings are held typically the second Wednesday of each month, at 7:30pm, in room 127, (or via Zoom during Covid) with a lot of email information being exchanged between meetings.
Dues: There is no cost to belong to the webgroup, but active participation is required. Each member typically is responsible for several pages, and is responsible for the What's New page for one week at a time.
History: The VBA Website went live on Sept. 15, 2002. For a brief history of our website, click here.
Mission: The mission of the webgroup is to provide VBA Residents with a Community website.
Purpose: The purpose of the webgroup is to enhance communication to and from all residents of the VBA by providing electronic access to timely, accurate and useful information about life in the VBA and around the city of Guelph. For more details on the mission, purpose, responsibilities and policies of our webgroup, please click here.
Members: These members have accepted the task of designing the VBA Website and continue to maintain and update the website:
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Former Members: The following former-members played a substantial role in creating and updating the VBA Website: Patrick McAuley (original Chairperson), Colin Allen, Don Bates, Bill Colvin, Dick Baumgartner, Ian Boyd, Bob Carthew, Jim Cayford, Yvon Cyr, Bill Eason, Alvin Gillies, Peter Heal, Steve Jordan, Don Milley, George Moruzi, Ken Moen, Larry Smith, Doug Thomas, Sya Van Geest, George VanHare, and David Young.
Website Usage Statistics:
We have looked at the website usage, via Server-statistics as well as survey results.
We have concluded this: Approximately 62% of the usernames that were assigned visited the website on an average day.:
You can check out more details on our Website Usage webpage.
Autonomy: The Web committee is autonomous from the VBARA Executive.
The web-committee originated as an activity group, and evolved into a committee. Where possible, we try to respect the idea of "freedom of the press". With that in mind, when the VBARA Executivein 2014 requested that our activity group become a web-committee in order to get liability-insurance coverage, we liked the idea of the insurance coverage, but were concerned that we would lose our role to be an independent voice representing the residents; we did not wish to report directly to the VBARA Executive. i.e. we felt that we "reported" directly to the VBA residents themselves, and not to the VBARA Executive.
When we got assurances from the VBARA Executive that we could remain autonomous, we agreed to become a web-committee. The following emails outline that agreement that we got from the VBARA Executive.
Note: Gerry Meinzer was President of the VBARA Executive at the time, and Ian Miller was on the VBARA Executive; Gerry was representing the VBARA Executive in his discussions with the webgroup. Doug Fitzsimmons was Chair of the Webgroup at the time, and David West was backup-chair. Doug Fitzsimmons was representing the webgroup.
From: Doug & Sharon Fitzsimmons [mailto:fitzsimmonsds@yahoo.ca] Webgroup: We now have insurance coverage from whoever insures the VBARA Executive group. From: Doug & Sharon Fitzsimmons From: Doug & Sharon Fitzsimmons
Hi Doug I agree with your caption of our meeting but I want to be sure that we understand the insurance proviso. We have requested coverage from our broker with the inclusion of two standing committees – TreeTalk and WEB. I do not have bound coverage yet. The issue of liaison was triggered by the Executive but not forced on any committee. Liaison persons are definitely non-voting. Formal ratification of your status switch is scheduled for the Oct 14 Executive meeting. Gerry From: Doug & Sharon Fitzsimmons [mailto:fitzsimmonsds@yahoo.ca] Gerry Meinzer, Ian Miller: Thanks for the meeting yesterday with David West and myself. This email is to document the meeting. PURPOSE: The main purpose of the meeting was to request that the VBA webgroup become a standing committee underneath the VBARA, instead of remaining as an Activity Group. The benefit of becoming a standing committee, is that we come under the umbrella of the VBARA Executive, and therefore we would be covered by their liability insurance. Otherwise, if we're an activity group, then we're not. What is the impact of this on our daily workings? AUTONOMY: Gerry assured us that we would still be completely autonomous. I gave the example of the survey about the road-safety signs, and how the VBARA executive at the time, asked us to NOT publish that survey, and we went ahead and did it anyway. Gerry said – that would still happen today. The VBARA executive will not be forcing their will onto us. We will remain completely autonomous. There is NO change from today. This issue about remaining autonomous is the largest concern about us becoming a standing committee. LIAISON MEMBER Right now, some of the standing committees are setting up liaison members from the VBARA executive to sit in on their meetings twice / year. REPORTING: What reporting do we now have to do? So, there doesn't appear to be any downside, but a tremendous upside, in that it protects all our webgroup members from litigious action. SUMMARY: Assuming that they agree, and you confirm, I will try to give my full approval to you within 2 days. Thanks, |
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HELP! - One-on-one Assistance We have several web-committee members who are willing and eager to help you get started, and will come right to your home, and help you to access the VBA Website from your own computer. If you don't own a computer, we can help you access the VBA website from one of the Library computers. In either case, if you would like some one-on-one help, please contact one of the following residents:
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Behind the Scenes: Before we created the first web-page, we had to decide what VBA residents would want to
see, and then we needed to figure out how to show it in an attractive manner, and yet full of meaningful content.
We needed an architecture. We needed standards. We needed security.
The webgroup is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the following VBA Web documents, which are available for anyone to read, in the form of web-pages. Note that some of the pages are meant for a technical audience who wants a behind-the-scenes look at what we did, and may be quite boring to the general VBA population.
| Document | Answers the questions ... |
| Architecture | WHY did we create this website? How can you use it? |
| Mission, Purpose, Responsibilities and Policies | What is our mission-statement, and our main purpose? How do we achieve this? |
| Internet Terminology | What do some of these terms mean? Is the VBA site an intranet? |
| Security | How did we address security? Can you change your password? |
| Standards | How did we make it user-friendly? |
| Webmaster Duties | What are the responsibilities of the VBA Webmaster? |
| Web-Page Contact Duties | What are the responsibilities of the VBA Web-contact person? |
| What's New Schedule | Which "editors" are creating the What's New Page this week & next month? |
| What's New Policy | What are the policies of the What's New Page? |
| Web-Committee Documentation (for web-committee members only) | How-to instructions for our committee members. Documentation is needed for backup-duties. This is the "webdocs" directory. |
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Updated February 8 2024 |
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