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Hi, I would like to be a fourth or fifth person on this committee with minimal duties. In other words, I believe my knowledge of the Telluride area and organization of past meetings could be helpful but I don't have tons of time to devote to this. Tanya
I agree.And Steve, I have heard second-hand that Victor was asked to resign his position. Perhaps someone who attended the Denver Greens meeting can confirm.Tanya IshikawaAdams-Jefferson Greens
As has been noted in the past, members of the Adams-Jefferson party have donated/contributed to the state party (and national party sharing back to the state) in the past. It is the hope that some of those donations could be shared back with the chapter.TanyaAdams-Jefferson
Some other things to keep in mind on this project:- the Adams-Jefferson Greens donate to the state party in part because we can not donate to our selves with no treasurer. I for one also donate on a recurring basis to national which is supposed to return a portion of that to the state party. So, our local chapter members do feel that some return from the state party for this type of expense is reasonable. (though I believe we have in general been donating more to individual candidate campaigns in recent months and even the last couple years so our donations to the state may be a bit down at the moment)- We could print in black and white instead of color to stay within a budget. I could reformat the flyer as a half page flyer (double sided) at some point to reduce expenses if the chapter agrees to it. I don't have time to do it this week. I would have time in November.Tanya
Hi, Bill,The Events link under Get Involved is not working. The calendar has disappeared! Please fix it when you have a chance. The Events blog link is still active so that is good but it would be nice to have the calendar back.Also, I figured out that the Vote Green link under Get Involved is the Candidate page, so disregard my last request/question about having a candidate link on the menu. It is there! I just have to update it.Also, I see the Be Green link but I don't understand or remember what info was supposed to be there. It looked like you put some info there as a placeholder. Please remind me if you get a chance. Thank you, Tanya
Hi, Bill,How exciting! Thank you very much. At first glance, very happy. But noticed two things right away that some how were missed in planning:1 probably should be a tab about candidates and elections under About Us. I think that would be a good place for it (besides the button on the home page) so you could find it no matter which page you were in on the site2 elections and candidates on the right bar of the home page should probably be above chapter news, because elections etc. is more of a statewide concern, plus chapters may be slow in getting us updates and that would appear too static or have a bias toward the more active chapters who get stuff to us (which generally is OK but I think would be better if it were second in the order of things)What do you think of those two updates, Ryan and other forum peeps?I'll look at the rest of the site this weekend for more thoughts. I probably won't have time to fill in extra text/content on pages until late next week.Tanya
Hello, sorry for a few days absence again. And thanks for all your serious consideration of the best way to present the website!Locals vs ChaptersLocals is not a plural noun. It is an abridged version of Local Chapters. The only noun for Local is a local bus route (in my opinion, still not a real noun) and a local anestesia. I understand your concern about length etc. I agree that we can use Locals in headings and in second references in sentences and paragraphs. I prefer to use Local Chapters or local chapters in all first references where word length is not an issue. That could be our style guide rule. We can drop ever using chapters by itself.AboutLet's go ahead with About or About us or Who We Are. I am good with all three. However, I disagree with the idea that About the Greens is confusing because it does not specify Colorado. If that were the case, About and About us and Who we are have the same issue- they do not indicate About whom or About Colorado. Still, you decide between these choices. I think it is an improvement to move away from About GPCO.RE:I think we should just use "About The Green Party of Colorado" as the title on this page (but not the navbar). I would also suggest that we do a search for the word "GPOC" on the website and replace all instances of it with either "GPCO" or a non-abbrevated variation when appropriate.I agree!Party Structure or Party OrganizationI agree with all your comments here. Go for it!Actually, my only issue is that I would prefer Financials not to be on the drop down menu under this heading on the navbar. I would like it to be a link on the Party Structure/Organization page but not in the dropdown menu. It is still available but just not as accessible.Resolutions and NewsI agree with your agreement. However, we need to remove resolutions or council proposals from News. Position statements might be OK under news, but I think our council business and its results are not real news. They go under the About or Position Statements or somewhere else. I would think news should be press releases from our candidates, locals, etc. and media coverage (links to news, radio, etc. about us).Chapters and Council forumI agree with your ideas and your and Bill's plans.Merchandise linkCool. It's own link on the navbar is cool. Keeping with the theme of active verbs, how about: Purchase, Be Green, Wear Green, Shop with us... Your choice.Register Green, Vote Green, Be GreenLove your ideas. Thank you. Now, have fun getting it done and be sure to contact me when you need assistance.Tanya
Hi, Jonesy and Bill,Here are my comments to your proposals for the website:I propose that we change the navigation bar items to read | Home | About GPCO | Get Involved | Chapters | Contact | Donate | -I AGREE except for About GPCO. I think it should be "About the Greens" or "Colorado Greens" or "Meet the Greens" or "Meet the Green Party" or "Who we are" something else. I just don't like the acronym GPCO because it is so vague and unemotional and not inspiring or something to feel connected to. Some companies just put "About Us" or some parties put "Learn" or "Learn More" so it doesn't really have to say Colorado or CO in it because people know they are on the Colorado Green Party website already and when they get to each menu item or section, they will read about Colorado Greens, not the national greens. HomeThis is just a link to the home page. We may want to make the GPCO image at the top of the screen a clickable image linking to the homepage. This is not a priority. - I AGREE that the Image should be a clickable Link to the Home page, but also think we should keep Home in the navbar. About GPCOThis links to the "About" page. The title of this page should say "About the GPCO" instead of what it currently says, "About GPOC". I think the body of text on this page could use some re-writing to pertain more to the Green Party of Colorado. (see above for my issue with GPCO and suggestion for different heading) HistoryThe current history page is in pretty good shape. I like the detailed timeline. I would remove the paragraph about instructions on forming a local. There are better places for this. -I AGREE Public Office HoldersThis page exists and should continue to. While the history section does list our victories, it is hard to separate our candidates from the GPCO officers. It is also hard to tell if their run was successful from the history page. I think we should break thispage up into current and past elected officials with dates. We should also put a link to this page on the History page. -I AGREE GPCO StructureCurrently, "About GPCO" lists the following sub items: Board Members & Contacts, Bylaws, Procedures & Guidelines, and Financials. The sub items Council Proposals and Committees are currentlylisted under the News and Get Involved navbar links respectively. All of these sub items mentioned should be merged into one page. This is the GPCO Structure page.. The easy thing to do would be to just create this page and put links to all these pages on it. It would be nice to someday have a description and perhaps a diagram of how the GPCO is organized. This could be added later though. -I don't like the GPCO Structure title; could it be "Party Organization" or something else? Or actually it seems like these should be revised into two different menu items with some info moved to other website pages (i.e. contacts) as follows:1 new menu heading- State Officers (use Board Members & Contacts) and I would take off the contact info from this page as it will be on the contact page. In place of contact info, you could put photos of each person plus a very brief bio (40-70 words) or a link to a less brief bio (150-250 words) plus you could add a couple paragraphs about state officer terms and some relevant info from the bylaws or P&G to help website visitors and prospective state officer candidates see details about what officers are/do.2 new menu heading: Bylaws & Procedures (Bylaws, Procedures & Guidelines) only,Then, I think Financials should go at the bottom of the History page or mixed in with the history so for example: years with officers first, state meeting minutes second, and Financials last for each year (2011-2012 etc).This is probably a good time to explain that I think we have to make our procedures and rules more easily accessible to people who are looking for info about specific roles/ways to get involved. Right now, we always refer people to the bylaws or the P&G which are such long documents and you have to search through them to find specific info. It would be more helpful of us if we created pages/downloadable info sheets about specific items such as: State Officers (duties, terms and qualifications), Public Office Candidates (qualifications, process, timelines, etc.), New Chapters (how to begin, who can do it, how to find support, requirements for approval by state, etc.). Resolutions and Position StatementsThis link currently is "GPCO Resolutions". I would be fine with keeping this title but I feel that "Position Statements" adds a meaningful description. We should add items like our endorsement of Occupy and such. The GPCO has issued several endorsements and position statements and I wish it was something that was done more often. It is a great way for visitors to see what the GPCO stands behind. -I AGREE or Platform or Political Platforms but whatever you think is most understandable. Get InvolvedThis area could use a lot of content. I won't get into that now but I think there is a lot of potential. Register GreenThis sounds better than the current "Voter Registration" sub item. -I AGREE E-ListsI think this page can stay for now. I do think the section about how to get on the Council listerv should be removed. It instructs people to contact Claire Ryder. This info really doesn't need to be there. Any local that is forming can get instructions on how to join the council listserv by contacting the Co-Chairs. -This page will need to be changed to "Forums" as soon as possible and describe and have links to the various forum participation opportunities. For example, it would start with how to join a discussion forum, and then how to observe state council forum activities, and how to become a state online council/forum voting member, etc. I also think this should have a subheading/drop down menu item for "Join a Chapter" and that page would link back to the Local Chapters pages but have more details on how to find your chapter and what it takes to join chapter activities and what to do if no chapter exists in your area. EventsWe should move the "Events" navbar item here. - I AGREE ChaptersThis page is pretty good as it is. I have a couple of suggestions. The State and Local links are a little bit confusing. I guess "State" is supposed to be a page on the GPCO website about the local, and "Local" is a link to the locals website. We could just make the name of the local link to the GPCO page about the local and have a "Website" link instead of a "Local" link. I think the Forming aLocal Party paragraph is a great thing to have here. I would recommend adding instructions for contacting the co-chairs when forming a local. Under the Current "Events" navbar link there is sub item for "Chapter Meetings". I think it would make sense to do away with the Chapter Meetings page and just put this information on the Chapters page. - I AGREE with all of these chapter suggestions. ContactThis currently says contacts. I think it should say Contact.. I prefer the verb to the plural noun. -Actually "Contact" is still a noun though it could be a verb but it is unclear with just the one word. If we want it more active, it should probably be "Contact us" (just like Get Involved).I would like to change this page to more of a "this is how you get in touch with the GPCO" rather than just a listing of officers. It would be very helpful to add a paragraph that explains reasons for contacting the GPCO. Something like, "If you have any questions or are interested in starting a local of the GPCO, contact the co-chairs. You can get in touch with the GPCO local in your area by visiting our Chapters page." Right now it is a little bit intimidating because it is a somewhat long list of official positions. Someone may not know who to begin with. I also think that the State representatives and the GPCO Council facilitator should be listed on GPCO structure page. We have to remember that people visiting the contact page are probably not already involved with the GPCO. -I AGREE that sentences describing who to contact for what would be more useful, but probably all the current contacts need to remain there for some reason or another, just better identified. For example, we should also list who is the media contact (co-chairs for now). DonateThis is arguably the most important page of the whole website. It is usually the last link on the navbar for easy access. It is also sometimes highlighted. We should make it stand out. - I AGREE. We also have to think about where Green merchandise can be located. Would it be a second dropdown menu item under donate? Or would it be under Get Involved or where? Kevin has been wanting this link for a while. And, my chapter members were recently asking how to get GPCO paraphenalia so it would be good to finally add our Colorado Green Store (which would also be needed if we sell that ebook that Eric proposed at the state meeting).I also like this from the Libertarian site and think it could go under Get Involved or Who we are: http://lpcolorado.org/learn/am-i-libertarian/http://www.theadvocates.org/quizPlus I think we need to have some links on our site to the League of Women Voters and VoteSmart websites that help people figure out which political districts they are in and which offices are in those districts and when the elections are. Our chapter members have no idea about these matters and keep talking about researching it. It is slowing us down, so it would be great to have those links to help people figure those out. They would probably be under the Get Involved section under new dropdown menu items such as "Support a Candidate" and "Run in an election" or "Become a Candidate" and "Get appointed to office" (this last one would explain about how there are so many opportunities for Greens to get appointed to local, state and regional boards, commissions, etc. and begin their political career or at least contribute their Green perspective to local and state government without seeking election).Finally, I think all the suggested links above to the website would increase SEO of the site and we would rank higher in web searches with different engines.That's my input. As I mentioned before, I have limited time so can't help implement most, especially coordinating with Liz to make nav bar and menu changes. But, if you let me know when you need a page revised or written and either send me the current page or the description of which page I will work on, I can help with those and usually get each done within a week.Let me know what you think of my ideas and comments.Tanya
Once again, I thank both Bill and Jonesy for working on this and I apologize for dragging my feet a little. It looks like the rest of the website committee is fine with us taking the task on. I really will get this read within a couple more days and give you my input. Then, you will be ready to work with Liz to get it done. Thanks for being patient for my feedback. Tanya
Ditto on the sentiments so far on this forum. Thanks to all who made the state meeting flow well and produce some solid results. Looking forward to more progress in the coming year. Tanya, Adams-Jefferson Greens
