University of Gloucestershire Business School Alumni Project
Initial Contact Presentation
by David Bennoson C.Eng.
M.I.E.E. and
Marcus Green BA (Hons.)
FRSA, MRSH, MinstF(Cert.)
About GCAB
Long Established Charity since 1858
Provide a range of services throughout Gloucestershire
for the Visually Impaired (VI)
Hospital Information Service
Visiting Service
Resource Centre
Volunteers
Members Information Groups
Marketing Mix
Previously restricted how we could fundraise
Press Releases
Leaflets
Marketing Opportunities e.g business breakfasts
“Spokesmen” on VI issues
Collection Boxes - point of sale
Events e.g. fundraising, street collection
WEBSITE
Our Initial Objectives
Have a presence on the World Wide Web
Give us credibility as a serious charity
Enhance credibility with a professional site
Inform our clients of the range of services
Inform our contributors of these services
Promote GCAB to volunteers and
Provide a news and information service to all
Have a presence on the Web
It was becoming increasingly important four years ago
to have a web site as those without were not take as seriously as an
organisation and more and more of our clients were getting internet and email
facilities. In addition, it would be much easier to keep everyone informed of
what we were doing,
Give us credibility as
a serious charity
Many other charities by this time had good informative
websites and we wanted (had) to compete.
Enhance credibility with a professional site
A slap-dash / ropey site would be worse than no site
at all so a reasonable way to do this with very little expense and effort had
to be found.
In short, free volunteer labour was found in
conjunction with using Microsoft FrontPage.
Inform our clients of the
range of services we provide
It was traditional and normal to give information out
in a written, sometimes large print form. Those clients who have the equipment,
appreciate the web site for this.
Inform our contributors
of the services we provide
We survive as an organisation on the contributions and
donations we receive.
Information about us is almost always gained from our
website.
Promote GCAB to volunteers
and
Provide a news and information service to all
Even if at the moment people do not need out services,
they may do in the future or know someone that does.
General awareness is therefore very important
Design of the Site
Clean and Uncluttered - This aspect is important to our visually impaired
audience but still has to look good to everybody
More important pages to be given greater visibility as an option
Have a consistent theme
Navigation
to be clear and straightforward.
Frames to be
avoided if possible as this creates difficulties with screen readers.
Control Tip Text to be included where possible
Site Operability
Money is tight and we cannot afford to have a site
that is difficult to update requiring a lot of effort and skill to do so.
The method at the moment is to use the web space (100
MBytes) provided by our ISP and as previously stated, voluntary effort and
Microsoft FrontPage.
How can you help us?
Based on our objectives identify our mistakes. What is
Good and Bad about the present site. Be candid and objective!
No on-line donations are catered for. How can this
easily be achieved.
Set out your ideas for improvements with examples for
parts of the site. We are very open to new ways of design and presentation.
Conclusion
We endorse all the points made in your module EB202 – Assessment task 2 and look
forward to liaising with you all to improve our website. We will where possible
include any of these in the site and give credit for these contributions.
If you have any further questions, please
do not hesitate to contact us.
Information
Marcus Green is Director of GCAB and can be contacted
on director@glos-blind.co.uk
David Bennoson is a Trustee and Secretary of GCAB
besides being their Webmaster and technical advisor. His email address is david.bennoson@glos-blind.co.uk
