Written by Andrew T

Good Morning Angels,

This article was suggested to me by someone who e-mailed me and told me what to write about. And I turned that suggestion into this elegant piece of writing. It is like The Ugly Duckling. You’ll see. But the idea came from Josh. He’s a loyal reader, I assume, in the same way that samurai are loyal to their master.

Anyways, Josh sent me an e-mail and suggested that I write about clubs at the University of Guelph and what they do digitally to stay in touch with their members. What do I know about clubs? Nothing! But I’ve done my best to tell you what I’ve gleaned from Josh’s e-mail.

First off, running a club sounds hard.

Second off, did you know that not all clubs have offices on campus? I knew that, but Josh reminded me. I need reminders sometimes.

Can you imagine being in a club like the Outdoors Club (henceforth known as The O.C.) and not having an office indoors! That’d be a funny thing to complain about. Luckily, they have an office. What the O.C. also has is a website…but it needs an update. Like your bedsheets, websites should be updated/washed every nine years (at least).  The O.C. aside, having a ballin’ website is even more important if you don’t have an office. I mean, like, how else will you tell members what the dealio is? Or what the haps are? Listservers are lame and complicated. I know that some people utilize those, but I think maintaining a Facebook group is a lot easier. But an actual website is more legit. So do that.

For my thirdly point, I would like to accuse UoG for not helping things! That may be brash, but I’m really just trying to start some beefing. According to Josh, the university’s offer of free webhosting is not compatible with MySQL, which The O.C. needs if they want to use WordPress as the backbone of their new site. Now, I like WordPress. As far as backbones go, it’s certainly a spine you want to have. It’s easy to use and change. Like a diaper, but in a good way. And unlike the real O.C. (which is not a diaper), the idea of Guelph’s O.C. paying money for external hosting and a decent WordPress theme is like the idea of Ryan actually going out with Lindsay: Yeah, we’d like it if the club had the money to do those kinds of things, but…paying for things is actually like dating your foster mom’s half sister? Yeah. For a second there I wasn’t sure if my analogy was sexy enough. It is.

(There is a solid dollar for the first person to get in touch with me an accurately explain what I just said and what my reference really meant.)

In summation, that last point is calling the university out to provide better integration for web applications. C’mon, UoG. Do it for the students. Dooooo It! MySQL it up!

Basically (fourthly?) a web presence is great. If I had an award show, then I would give an award to Josh for using the internet to reach out to the O.C.’s members. I would also give awards to anyone that saw maintaining a readable and beautiful webspace to be a club priority. Having a webpresence is a great way of a) meeting new people, b) letting people you already know learn more things about you, and c) saving a URL for when some company really wants it and you can sell it for a cool million. That’s why Scott and I are gonna buy BigMoneyButts.com and PelicanDonutDelivery.net. One of those has gotta pay off some day!

For my final point (#5) let me just say that I was SO EXCITED when I got Josh’s e-mail. Let me just say that. If there’s ever anything you want me to write about, let me know. Send something to andrewt.press@gmail.com. And Josh, I hope you found this…entertaining. I’m gonna go find something entertaining to do now! I’ll probably watch Joan of Arcadia!

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