too big and spread out.....and BORING! especially if i was totally new and exploring sites for a church home! SG's coolness is not reflected at all in this format!

Thanks for your comments thus far. We consider this site a work in progress want to make a site that is both useful and fun to use.  Specifics on what you both like and don't like will help a lot.  Also, just as a note most of the brains behind this site is volunteer time so please be patient if it takes a while to reply or make changes.

Thanks again and keep the comments coming. 

Hello all,
Ben Dolmar, here. I'm a member of the Spirit Garage Web Team and have been very active in the development of the current incarnation of the site. I had a few thoughts that I wanted to add to this thread. The first being that it is important to make a distinction between "done" and "launched" when considering a web site.

Web sites are never really done. Unlike so many other mediums--print or broadcast--they can shift and grow between page refreshes. Content changes. Features change. Designs change. Is the site, today, all that it can and will be? No. Is the new site today a far shot better than the last version. I definitely think so.

The current site is designed to empower the community. Small group leaders have a new tool that lets them maintain and update their calendar and postings with instanteous results. Writers in the community can post meditations. Artists can share their art.

As a community, we're going to grow into our content and editorial processes. That will help to make the site feel more like Spirit Garage. We've considered lots of changes, but before making changes we need to watch how the site is actually used.

As Ryan said, if there are specific suggestions of feature or ideas that would make the site better, we're interested in hearing them. Cheers!!!

Need to put a map, or a link to a map on the top page.  Anybody interested in attending might quickly decide not to when they cannot easily find that info.  Where is it anyway?

The map is in the "About" section under "map and directions". We could certainly add a link to it from the permanent "Welcome" message on the front page. Although we do already link to the "About" section there. What are people's thoughts?

I guess I'm not the only one playing scavenger hunt, please help it stop (although I did find the map link, however when I was looking for something else). . .  I'd rather play hot and cold, meaning when I'm trying to find something on the website, currently I have to go into each headline - About, Arts, Meditations. . . and I often choose wrong having to go into room number 2, 3, 4. . . Could there be drop down menus to give me a preview of what I will find under each category?

I understand RSS will give me updates when new things are posted, how do I set this up. Couldn't find any info on the website. . . a really bad game of scavenger hunt.

Thanks for your work. Rob 

Firefox is an excellent free browser. Download it from their site. I use the Sage Extension for Firefox as my RSS aggrigator.  It is simple and works well within Firefox.

Sage extension with Firefox works well, but I always end up using other people's computers, which often don't allow any downloads (public libraries, for example). I've tried some aggregators, like Blogspot, none of which I like.

The trouble with forums is that, if you say something stupid, it's there forever. My last post makes it sound like I don't know aggregators from compilers. For the record: Aggregators compile; compilers assemble; assemblers translate and translators transliterate. Does anything actually do what its name suggests?

I have to say that I do not like the color palette for the new website.  Something about mixing the orange with pastel blues and greens and the diagonal pinstripe... just kinda reminds me of Grandma's mint dish.

No offense to whomever put the look together, I think the structure of the site is great.  But the colors really turn me off and don't seem as hip and cool as our old site, or match with the black and white photos in the headings of the different sections.  We have so many great visual artists in the community - maybe we could invite one or two of them to take a look at the colors and do a little art directing?

What do other people think? Am I the only one who thinks the color scheme needs tweaking?