One of the problems community groups have is when people want to do stuff for them, rather than with them. A danger of the recent Full Code Press challenge was that the beneficiary community groups would end up with a superb new website but no support or assistance with using and maintaining it.

While the organisers had some plans in place for keeping an eye on things, it’s thrilling to read that the Code Blacks have volunteered an ongoing relationship:

The true winners, though, were the clients. We’d formed a really strong bond with Debbie and Mr Debbie from Grampians disAbility Advocacy Association, and it was all quite teary at the end. Thomas gave a lovely speech and we presented Debbie with a thankyou card from all of us - and a promise in writing that in addition to “smoothing out the rough edges of the site” (as Thomas described it) over the next couple of weeks, we will also provide them with 15 hours per month of Code Blacks time for the next year at least - to grow the site and to show them what web 2.0 is all about. We’re really looking forward to it.

The boys are going to do some initial training with Debbie in Sydney tomorrow (they are all staying an extra day - Thomas and I were the only ones to come home tonight) and we’ll also put together some training documentation for them. There’s so much stuff we want to add to the site (quite a bit of which we’d either finished or nearly finished over the 24 hours but just didn’t have a chance to implement), and we hope we can really make a difference with this website - both for Debbie and her team, and for the people she helps. It’s an awesome organisation. I’ll write more about it tomorrow.

[Via WebWeaver's World: FullCodePress - we won!!!.]

How pleasing to see this partnership arise. I hope it’s the start of a greater liaison and understanding between web designers and community organisations.

Some points of interest

• I (Miraz) was one of the selection team for the beneficiary community groups, and am one of the organisers for the Webstock Conference.
• Several NZ groups applied to be the beneficiaries of the Full Code Press challenge but just didn’t get selected.
• There will be another Full Code Press challenge in February 2008. Keep an eye on this blog for notices about your opportunity to apply for a free professionally designed website.
• The next Webstock Conference is being held in Wellington in February 2008. You should consider attending. We’re trying to make some scholarships available for community groups, as we did for Webstock 2006.
• On 15 September 2007 a BarCamp¹ around making a difference to egovernment in New Zealand will take place in Wellington. Stephen Blyth and I plan to run a workshop for people interested in community groups / non-profits and Internet. I hope you’ll join us there.

¹Never heard of BarCamps — don’t worry: it’s a kind of relaxed conference with lots of participation, rather than a bunch of ‘talking-head experts’ making presentations to a passive audience.

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