Official gaa.ie websites

[flairgun]

Howya lads.
Has anyone here used the official GAA.ie website management system to setup a club or county website?
Linked below for those who don't know what I mean.
http://www.gaa.ie/page/gaa_websites.html

I was looking to set something up for our club and wanted to get some feedback.
Is it easy to use/manage etc.?
I'm fairly computer savvy but haven't actually set up a website before.

[tayto]

I think there are much better options out there, here's some good dublin sites that all seem to have some sort of content management system built in, see the bottom of the homepages for links to what a couple of them are built with ... 

http://www.stfinians.com/

http://www.kilmacudcrokes-hurling.com/

http://www.castleknock.net/

http://www.ballybodenstendas.ie/

[flairgun]

Those are all pretty good. I particularly like the St. Finians layout, although they could change that flash at the top to be a fixed banner and they'd be better off, I think.
Looks like bodens and possibly castleknock got professional web development too.

Does anyone know how limited the GAA system is? It seems like all the sites are that use it are very generic.

[never kickt a ball]

Try these:

http://www.ardboegfc.com/
http://www.omaghstendas.com/cms/index.php
http://www.carmengfc.com/
http://www.loughmacrorygfc.net/website/index.html

[AbbeySider]

I think there are much better options out there, here's some good dublin sites that all seem to have some sort of content management system built in, see the bottom of the homepages for links to what a couple of them are built with ... 

Tayto,
Have you any more information about the type of content management systems in place on those gaa sites? I myself am plan on re-vamping my own local gaa site and having a common template. It would be great if I could get my hands on a content management system so that other people could update the site without editing html pages and uploading using a web development tool like Dreamweaver. Any info would be appreciated! Cheers!

[catweazle]

How about this one lads, if your county board uses it, it will do the fixtures and results for you without having to update it

www.sportsmanager.ie

[tayto]

Two of them are built by this lot:

http://www.webtrade.ie/

I've no idea how much they charge but they build a nice site.


Another good one is O'Tooles:

http://www.otoolesgac.ie/

i think Kevin Flynn [dublin huler] is involved in IT but he uses a free content management tool :

http://www.joomla.org/

Which will allow you to update the site without using dreamweaver, but it might be slightly complicated to set it up.

[Fionntamhnach]

Trying not to blow my own trumpet here, but the website I had for our club which won a McNamee award was based on Joomla. However I'm wondering wherever to move away from it to going back to using other specialist third-party tools unless version 1.5 comes out of beta within the next few weeks, my main reason concerns accessibility. In any case, I'm taking a break from activities in my club for the year, committed to getting a site up and running but I'm trying to get two or three people to post reports etc.

The GAA.ie club sites I have no experience in how their backend works, but the frontend looks very inflexible. Wherever this is deliberate to keep things simple or for branding I don't know.

If you go for a third-party to develop a CMS for you, don't expect it to be cheap.

Most importantly, for any website make sure that it is regularly updated.

[neilthemac]

the GAA content management system is grand, and free

a bit limited in terms of what you can do with the site, but if you just want a basic enough site which is easy to update, then it is well worthwhile.

[flairgun]

Free is about the right price I'd say.
I think I'll start off with the GAA system to get something up, and maybe play around with Joomla or others later.

The official gaa.ie site also has the advantage of providing free hosting.
Did you have a sponsor cover the cost of your hosting, Fionntamhnach?

[neilthemac]

have a look at

http://gaa.ie/page/gaa_websites.html

[Gabriel_Hurl]

Do you need to pay for webhosting space with Joomla?

If so - who would you recommend?

[bailestil]

you'll need to pay for hosting if you use Joomla.

But you'll be paying for the Domain name and its worth the extra expenditure by the club for the hosting, of around £40-50pa.

I've yet to see a good example of the offical gaa.ie websites.

but in saying that doing your own site from scratch takes a lot of time!

If you looking to getting up and running and don't have much time/experience maybe the gaa.ie ones would be suffice.

[catweazle]

Flairgun send me a pm about what you want out of a potential GAA Club website and I might have a ready made solution for you.

[heganboy]

depends what you're looking for www.tyronegaa.ie and www.uujgaelic.com both use the gaelsport system as does our club ballyhegan ( www.ballyhegan.com)
Its important not to look at it as a website, but rather a communication tool. The manager or PRO should be able to email/text players at all levels about training, matches etc. The committee should be able to use it to manage meetings and minutes etc. Secretary should be able to do club membership etc.
Thats the approach that Gaelsport use and if you have a sponsor you can usually turn it into something that will end up binging in money instead of costing you. The content management system allows log in from any webpage and a range of formatting tools- if you can use hotmail/ gmail then you are pretty much set.

Also I think its a disgrace that there is a New Zealand company running the GAA's official sites. So much for the "Buy Irish" ethic- selectively used as always.

The most important thing for a website is that it is useful for the people that want to use it and that means keeping it up to date and relevant.