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Website & Newsletter Jan. 2023 Status Check

Technology is your Friend
Image shows a happy cartoon robot waving and smiling; image modified from a graphic licensed from Envato.

A quick update on how many people have registered for the website and newsletter, and an overview of what you're missing if you have not yet done so.

8 comments

To the 49 of you who have registered for the website so far, good job – a cookie for you. To the smaller number of you interacting with the website, two cookies for you. Thanks for helping to demonstrate the aliveness of the community by your timely interactions on posts.

To the five of you who have interacted with the internal posts, a high five. Please encourage the rest of the lot to join us back in there so that we can begin really using that for community building purposes. Do this by helping to get everyone registered, first of all. Then, by pointing out to them the various ways to access internal posts.

Who should register for this website?

People who want Living Table to know their name and contact information, and/or who are connected to Living Table either by attending church sometimes or through participating in allied ministries, should register for a verified account. Basically, friends and members should go ahead and register.

If your spouse or partner registered but you did not, you should register (unless you do not want to). Everyone must complete their own accounts, because when you check that little box indicating agreement with this website’s privacy policy and terms of use, you consent to the storage of your personal information. Your partner cannot do that for you. This is why your partner’s name cannot be stored unless they also have an account, because we have no legal right to store that information without their consent.

How many people have registered so far?

As of 1/19/2023, you have:

  • Verified members accounts: 49 (a good start, but this should be ~100)
  • Table Talk Newsletter subscriptions: 51 (this should be ~200)
  • People who have interacted with the members-only internal posts: 5 (this should be ~49)

Why register?

  • To access Zoom meeting links and passcodes for all church activities
  • To access Internal Posts
  • To provide your contact/directory information
  • To access future members-only content
  • To sign up for Table Talk, unless you are a non-member, in which can you can subscribe to the newsletter on its own through the newsletter-only page

What are these Internal Posts?

They are for members only, accessed by logging in to a verified account. They will never contain super secret information that shouldn’t be on the internet, but they are a place for non-public, in-house sharing and community building.

For example, right now there is a sign up sheet for supporting Sunday morning services in February – March, and there is a post about a meal train to support someone connected to our community who recently experienced a major health event. And once more folks register for the website, and way more folks access the internal posts, there is a ton of forthcoming use for those Internal Posts.

How do I register?

It’s a website sign up form. Scroll up and click the sign-in/register link on top of any page. There are also videos showing the entire process, and additional help files available in the Tech News section of the blog. Or ask someone to help you.

This is an accessible website, and we want you all on the inside, fully able to participate. If you are unsure how to register, please Read Everyone Should Register for the New Church Website, ask someone to help you, talk to Pastor Rachael, email Pastor Rachael, or comment on this post for help.

About Erika Sanborne

Erika Sanborne was previously the website developer and administrator for Living Table. In addition to web development, she produces digital graphics, videos, animated explainers, and portraiture work. Her other hats include: long-time math and psychological science educator, ordained UCC clergy, disabled veteran who is for peace, disability justice advocate, population health and disability policy researcher, and sociology PhD candidate. (Read more on Erika's website)

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8 thoughts on “Website & Newsletter Jan. 2023 Status Check”

  1. Hey, it’s fun to leave comments here. Join in. I’m not very techie, but I’ll try to help someone sign in if they want help.

    Reply
  2. Thank you Erika! We would be lost without you! As for the shy folks out there I guess we need to give them more encouragement and help like Ann suggests.

    Reply
  3. Thank you Erika for all of your hard work on this!
    One thing that occurred to me as I’ve been perusing through the Living Table site is having an option for being notified when someone responds to one of my comments. Have I missed turning on something? Can that be created if it’s not already?

    Reply
    • Good question. That used to be here but I removed it. I removed it because the previous version was based on logged-out users getting email when their comment received a reply. I am working on notifications for logged-in users getting a notification of replies to their comments instead, hoping that more people would log in to comment. But no, it’s not quite set up to notify of comment replies at present.

      Almost nobody logs in to comment tho, so I deprioritized the workflow to be honest. It’s still on the list, so consider it forthcoming either way. 🙂

      By the way, I could actually put the feature back right now, but I took it off because it’s another thing that slows down the site (see my answer to Char’s question below), and I’m trying to keep the site as lightweight as possible given the constraints of low quality hosting.

      Reply
  4. I’d like to be notified when anyone posts anything. Is that possible?
    Also, I find it takes awhile to pages to load–does this have to do with any laptop or internet provider?

    Reply
    • Good questions. Let me answer.

      Notified when anyone posts a blog post? We aren’t doing that in-house, but you can do it yourself if you want by subscribing to the feed.

      Do you know what an RSS Reader is? The RSS feed for Living Table’s blog is https://livingtable.org/lt_blog/feed/ and you can get a free RSS Reader app (on your phone or computer) and subscribe that way. An RSS Reader only needs the URL of the feed you are subscribing to. Copy that from my comment here. The app will then send you notifications when there is a new post.

      When the website is slow to load that could be because of your laptop or your internet service provider. It could also be that the church’s website is hosted on what’s called shared hosting, which is provided for free to non-profits from a company called Dreamhost. Shared hosting is typically slow and cannot be optimized.

      Hosting a website on premium servers is a much better choice, and has associated costs. Look at the website for my web agency, for example. Click around. Does it ever seem slow? The difference is the hosting, and the church website is limited to what is possible on shared hosting right now.

      Reply

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