Best Ulster County Website

[bailestil]

The derry site can't really be faulted. Very few things would happen in the county without it being on the website. Results service for senior and underage is brilliant.
Yet still they seem to get grief if they miss something!

The gaa's pr in general online is pretty awful. Their own cms for clubs is horrific.

[FermPundit]

Fermanagh - probably the only county whose current site is worse than what they previously had! Again hampered by the gaa.ie CMS, it's been hardly updated since the start of this year. For the smallest county in Ulster, it shouldn't take that much to get a half-productive site going, the only question is there anyone willing to take that on?

Yeah, the Fermanagh website isn't great but it was updated wth results regularly throughout the whole summer so I suppose that's a big improvement from last year. Websites are extremely expensive to update and maintain so I'm not going to be too critical of the Fermanagh county board.

[BigJohnBrowne]

Big changes to the IT side of things planned, impressive  ! - Press Release on GAA.ie


"The GAA are delighted to announce today (Wednesday the 17th of December) a relationship with Google to implement a series of technology projects across the Association.

As part of the GAA Strategic Vision and Action Plan 2009-2015, communicating more effectively with all internal and external audiences was idenitifed as a key priority. The GAA together with its new technology partner Google will help to realise this aim by providing access to email, calenders and online tools which will encourage greater communication and sharing of information between different GAA groups.

The implementation, which will be supported by Baker Security and Networks, will initially see the development of a more effective and easy to use email system. The second phase will involve the creation of an intranet site to enable club, county and provincial officers, as well as staff, to communicate more effectively with Croke Park and each other. The final phase will see the redevelopment of the GAA web site using the latest technologies from Google to enable our Association to deliver current and relevant information to all our members and the public in a modern and user friendly manner.
"We are delighted to be working with Google, a world leader in web technologies and web enabled solutions. This relationship ensures that the GAA can now utilise world class technologies to enable enhanced communications and sharing of information between individuals, our units at all levels plus the general public." stated President of the GAA Nickey Brennan.

"The GAA has a wealth of information and knowledge which has been gathered by its members over many years," said John Herlihy, Vice-President Google EMEA. "It´s important that the sharing of information, both old and new, is encouraged so that the GAA can continue to evolve. Technology, and in particular the internet, can make it easier for members to communicate with each other and access advice, experiences and initiatives held by other groups. We´re very excited to be taking part in the creation of a more cohesive and interactive GAA for existing and future members."

In developing this important partnership with Google, the GAA is ensuring that it remains the leading sporting and cultural organisation in Ireland by maximising the latest technologies to deliver quality information and support services to everyone. Work will commence early in the New Year and will be rolled out throughout 2009."

[The squinted eye]

I saw that,"big changes"more like usual bunch of hot air from the GAA IT committee in my opinion.

Again I worry about them going to such a large company for this, after the disaster with New Zealands Real Sports they need to get it right this time. Sometimes I feel that a solid Irish company would treat the gaa.ie website with the utmost respect as they understand how important the game is too Irish people and they understand the game. Google will look at this as a PR and branding exercise, and nothing more when it gets to the bottom line.

Calendars, emails, access to fixtures, text messaging and online tools, a lot of the county board websites have these in place already, reinventing the wheel is all they are doing!

An intranet for county board members, christ most of them are still using abacuses, one two members with IT knowledge will get shafted for everything pertaining to the intranet

[heganboy]

heard a few wee bits and pieces about this- and I'm more than a little surprised that, from what I've heard, I have to say this could be interesting, and may even work out well...

[BigJohnBrowne]

"The squinted eye" would you happen to be one of the many posters on this site that get a real buzz when they  damn people if they do and damn them if they don't ?     

At least we are moving in the right direction, by the way Bakers Technology is the IRISH company behind this IT move and they are using Google Technology/Applications (not to be frowned at) to put a system together for the GAA.  Why get a company to start and build a system from scratch when perfectly good software and hardware exists already that can be harnessed and styled to suit the GAA needs ? 

This will also address many of the strategies as published in the recent document. 

In my line of work I use Google Apps on a regular basis and I'd be lost without them.


At least give this a chance before talking about 'hot air' dribble........



Article I read yesterday in the Indo:

"By Donnchadh Boyle

Thursday December 18 2008

THE GAA has unveiled an ambitious new project designed to streamline the communications process at every level of the association.

After almost three years of planning, research and consultation, a partnership with technology giant Google was announced yesterday which will see the information flow throughout the GAA become more focused and relevant to the individual.

The three-phase programme, which coincides with the 125th anniversary of the association, will be rolled out as part of the Strategic Vision and Action plan and is aimed at encouraging greater communication across the board.

Among the features is an individual e-mail address for each and every member of the association where they will be able to access a host of information including their club's fixtures and results for that season at the click of a mouse.

User-friendly

The GAA's website will also be updated and become more user-friendly while there will also be an intranet that will allow specific levels within the GAA to communicate directly with each other, as Aoghan Farrell, chairman of Croke Park's IT committee explained.

"This has been a three-year project," said the Cavan native.

"Our market research showed us that a lot of units communicate with its members in the same way.

"So for example, all the members of a trade union receive the same newsletter they may be only mildly interested in whereas we wanted each member to access information that is specific to them.

"So for example, as a member of any club you can log into your e-mail and look at your calendar of games and it will tell you exactly when you are due to play.

"This information will be uploaded by the relevant county board and will be accessible to any member of that club.

"It will also streamline the whole process so if Croke Park wants to send something that is specific to county chairmen -- or any other level for that matter -- it can, rather than having to go through the secretary first as would have been the norm.

"There is also information that does not necessarily need to be made publicly available but that needs to get to certain levels.

"It cuts down the workload and ensures the people who get the message are the people that it is intended for."

An in-built text alert service will also be part of the package where clubs can send messages to its members.

A large number of clubs throughout the country already employ a similar system but, according to Farrell, this will be the cheapest option available to units as the GAA were able to negotiate a price of less than three cent per text.

The text alerts are the only part of the new system that clubs will be asked to pay for (should they decide to use it) as the rest of bill for the project will be picked up by HQ.

In another development, disciplinary information on individuals will also be centralised, allowing councils to view a member's history at each level of the game.

The move should cut out a significant amount of paperwork and make sure the player receives a fairer hearing in light of his or her record.

Croke Park will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the system with Google providing technological back-up.

"That Google are involved gives the project real credit," Farrell enthused.

"They are world leaders in this area. That an amateur organisation can get involved with them is unheard of.

"Indeed, there are many professional organisations that would like to have them on board. And remember, they are a worldwide body and we have units across the world too who will also really benefit from this."

The IT committee has a number of in-house trainers who will provide workshops to help units adapt to the new system, though Farrell was keen to stress the system was extremely easy to use and would benefit the association in the short, medium and long term.

"We are delighted to be working with Google," said GAA president Nickey Brennan. "This relationship ensures that the GAA can now utilise world-class technologies to enable enhanced communications and sharing of information between individuals, our units at all levels plus the general public."

- Donnchadh Boyle

"

[screenexile]

Any danger of themn developing a decent system for producing and managing a club website?

I'm in the process of gathering together ideas and researching different types of content management system at the minute and it seems to be a bit of a nightmare. The current GAA CMS looks crap as well as the design of a lot of gaa.ie websites. Something ese which needs to be looked at I think.

[bailestil]

sounds like a good plan. hopefully with google on board it will be easy to use and have credibility.

So long as the county boards and clubs make full use of the systems they should work well.
Fixture calendars, intranet and sms functions would be really useful.

[Over the Bar]

Cavan, Armagh & Fermanagh websites are identical other than the basic changes.  All obviously used the same web template.

[WeeDonns]

Yeah, the Fermanagh website isn't great but it was updated wth results regularly throughout the whole summer so I suppose that's a big improvement from last year. Websites are extremely expensive to update and maintain so I'm not going to be too critical of the Fermanagh county board.

This is 100% untrue. The GAA is the greatest organisation of volunteers in this country. Are you saying there's noone in the whole of Fermanagh, that would design a site for your county board, for free, for elected officials to update?
I hate the way so many county boards have decided to use the GAAs CMS simply because it's free. It's crap! It's a good resource for club's that have noone in their membership capable of putting a site together, otherwise it shouldnt be used.
The idea of croke park providing some sort of CMS solution for clubs was good. But the outcome was poor/terrible. I hope they didn't spend much on it.
You should be able to run a site for less than £100 a year. Our club site costs £30pa for hosting etc. Surely County boards could fork out this much? After that all you need is the input of volunteers.
Also, alot have used servasport? (Tyrone) and they look crap for a professionally designed site. Why the need to use this company? Why don't county boards source webdevelopers from within the county who will most likely put a little more effort into the site?

Any danger of themn developing a decent system for producing and managing a club website?

I'm in the process of gathering together ideas and researching different types of content management system at the minute and it seems to be a bit of a nightmare. The current GAA CMS looks crap as well as the design of a lot of gaa.ie websites. Something ese which needs to be looked at I think.

Screenexile, use joomla. It's free and easy to customise for your needs. The sites below all use it. Do a google search and you'll find more.
If you need any help, i'll do it for you.

www.drumraghgfc.net
http://www.erinsislegaa.com/

www.fintonagaa.com
www.beraghredknights.com
http://www.james-stephens.com/
www.wdcgaels.com
http://www.whitehallcolmcille.ie/
http://gaa.glenelly.net/
http://www.rossagaels.org/
http://ellanvanningaels.com/
www.parisgaels.celeonet.fr
http://www.odempseysgfc.ie/

[The squinted eye]

"The squinted eye" would you happen to be one of the many posters on this site that get a real buzz when they damn people if they do and damn them if they don't ?

Probably yes!!

Again though I worry when I see excerpts of what you have posted from the Indo, that article makes Aogan Farrell sound like a clueless idiot if the reader has a decent knowledge of IT systems

"That Google are involved gives the project real credit," Farrell enthused. "They are world leaders in this area. That an amateur organisation can get involved with them is unheard of."Indeed, there are many professional organisations that would like to have them on board. And remember, they are a worldwide body and we have units across the world too who will also really benefit from this."

What is this above, he sounds like a love struck teenager, are google world leaders in providing software solutions to GAA bodies, are the GAA IT Committee or whoever recommends Croke Park to go with google amatuer, I would hope not?? Is he expecting the new York board to interact with google New York to get their new newsletter up and running. I would have assumed someone with professional IT experience within Croke park to have selected google as their provider,  maybe they have but its not expressed in that article. I heard statements like this a few years back when the GAA launched their gaa.ie and club CMS with Real Sports. If you look at county boards sites, hardly any county or club uses the GAA system and the ones that do have the worst GAA websites in the country. Surely people are right to be sceptical about this new departure after what has happened previously.


An in-built text alert service will also be part of the package where clubs can send messages to its members. A large number of clubs throughout the country already employ a similar system but, according to Farrell, this will be the cheapest option available to units as the GAA were able to negotiate a price of less than three cent per text.

What is he spouting about here, the cheapest option?  Since when has three cents a text message become cheaper than free, O2 (albeit after a nasty redesign) and teamer offer text messages for free.There are other providers out there like clickatel, bulktext etc that provide this facility, why are GAA bothering ith this for a minimal cost saving if any for the club

Croke Park will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the system with Google providing technological back-up.

Lovely so we will be seeing additional needless IT expenses from Croke Park having to hire a helpdesk 24/7 365 days a year, and this will need to be 24/7 unlike the Croke Park staff most county board members are volunteers and updating of fixtures, websites will mainly be at night or at weekends so that is when they will have the questions? In House trainers being provided also I see

What do you think of google websites??? To say they are on a par with joomla at this stage would be a lie!! I would even consider Microsofts Share point a superior offering

I just have a lack of faith in Croke Park committees, a lot of the same guys that tied themselves in with Realsports are still there. They are again throwing money at something that can be easily done anyways providing there is a will coming from each county board. Take the new GAA logo for instance, I presume a lot of money paid for this joint writing effort, go into gaa.ie and have a look at the logo they have on the top of the page....their own website has the old one up. Those small logos linking to hurling and football on the right of the page.....50kbs each and people have been complaining about how slow their site is to load, easily solved, teach them about photo compression! No photos,hardly any results on the site and the ones they have are just thrown in with free text. They badly need to get their own house in order

When are the IT Committee going to realise that people dont need fancy google or realsport websites, they want a sensible design, content easy to find and upto date, results and fixtures accurate and updated regularly. Antrim,Derry and Leitrim are probably acknowledged as the best county websites in the country, not because they are the most pleasing on the eye but because the information is accurate and up to date on their sites. It is not the technology that is making them lead the field, it is the workload taken on by the county board in pursuit of a good website, without this will the most sophisticated intranet or text message service is useless

What I am trying to say Big John, is that nothing I have read about this new system has anything new or innovative about it, I am not complaining about them trying something new but a three year plan to come up with this and another year to roll this programme out....come on! Scratching their balls has been all they have done for the last three years if this is what they have come up with, the IRFU has most of the above in place for years

Again I say re-inventing the wheel at a considerable cost!

[Our Nail Loney]

The new Down site is a great improvement, the old version was very dated...

Who is in charge of updating the Down site?? Is it Diarmuid Cahill?