What do you get when you take a couple of designers who don’t know much about computer coding, a computer expert who has not worked with Google Apps much, a lot of good photographs and interesting data about the Enright CSA farm project, and a little vital information from the former Enright computer wizards about how to access our Google account?
Well, I’ll tell you what you get—a placeholder “Coming Soon” website, for the time being. But it’s something, and we have high hopes for having a real public face on the Web for the Enright CSA in the coming weeks. It won’t be a Google site; we’ve decided that there are easier ways to go about this, so we’re not quite sure what the website will be yet, but it’s well on its way to being, and that’s the important thing.
At first, it will simply provide information about what we’ve been doing with the CSA, current prices for shares for the season, and how to sign up or find out more. We also hope to have a way to connect to the Enright CSA Facebook page so that people can share news about the farm and other projects through Facebook. Eventually it may include information about what kind of produce you can expect to see each week, what’s expected in terms of work hours, and should provide a way to pay for shares with a credit card.
The basic website will let everyone who’s a current member of the CSA help promote what we are doing with this urban agriculture project. You can pass on the website address to friends and families who are interested in joining, and we’ll also have a simple online address to use in promoting the farm project to the general public, too.
Then, if our official Technology Committee doesn’t take to drink after getting the “public” part of our website up and running, there are plans to add a members-only section before the next growing season, to make it easier to communicate about pickups, provide news, and to have simple links to the weekly newsletter and this delightful blog, where you can get current information about the farm in general.
Finally, we want to try to find a way to figure out how to post information about work schedules, and maybe even have an online way to track hours worked. This is the hardest part of the whole plan, because the management software available is designed more for a one-farmer CSA type of setup, rather than a work share co-op scenario like we have. But we believe that it is doable, and imagine how great it would be if we could easily communicate via computer, laptop, iPad, Kindle, Nook, smartphone, yada yada, to find out where workers are needed and to keep track of our hours.
But, first things first. Look for the announcement of a new website coming soon—and wish us luck. Then, if you or someone you know happens to be an expert in Web design and coding, and they want to help with the harder bits, figuring out how to handle the scheduling without reinventing the plow, for example, we would be SOOO happy to talk to them and maybe con them into helping us—well, you can hardly imagine how thrilled we would be. If you are that person, or know that person, leave a comment here, or contact us at farm@pricehill.org and it would absolutely make our day.
