Bird TLC website

Sorry I've been a little lite on the blog and visiting other blogs lately. I've remodeled the Bird TLC main website. It's taken up a little bit of my time. Thanks to TLC volunteer Patrick Clark for doing the headers.

About 5 years ago I was very new to Bird TLC. My wife Ruth was volunteering on Mondays crew. I would go into visit and see the different things going on, but hadn't found a spot to dig in at yet. I helped doing some repairs and did some begging at the local chain stores.

For about a month they had a sign posted on the office managers door asking for a volunteer webmaster. I had always tinkered with computers, my first was a Commodore 128, but I had never taken on a large scale project. So I finally asked about it. Glenda told me the last webmaster was too busy to keep it up. The website was down, old and outdated. I had not a clue on how to do the job, so I said "I'll give it a try". On the way home I stopped at Barnes & Noble's and bought Webmastering for Dummies.

At that time I could check out what they did have and make any changes with Microsoft Word. I got all the pages how I wanted them and updated all of the information. I just didn't know how to get it on the web. I figured it was a good time to get a return on my investment in #2 son, Ryan. He was going to UAA and computers was one of his courses he was taking. He came over and we were online in a matter of minutes.

From there it was all trial and error. I settled in and kept it updated. I figured that would be the ticket if I got one of those fancy website awards. I applied to everyone I could find. Most never answered. But I did find one guy who was really helpful. I've lost track of him over the years, but he picked the website apart and told me what changes I needed to make for it to be a good website. I stayed up all night making the changes.

After a few years I thought the website was too limiting. We needed to tell stories of what was going on. It needed to be like a journal and it had to have pictures. It also had to be easier than a website to update. It had to be friendly and not stuffy. I researched for a while and then I decided to launch "The Bird TLC blog" on July 17, 2004. For the longest time I thought I was the only one reading it, but I kept going. I figured if I got one new reader, I was making headway. The word about our organization was getting out. 4 years later and sometimes I still wonder.

I've met a lot of good blogging friends over the years. I've also made a few in person because of it. I like looking at the Feedjit Live Traffic Feed and Map on the sidebar. I see people from all over the world. I think the word about Bird TLC might be getting out.