The Greatest Web Team on Earth
Posted by Anna Belle on 23 Jun 2007 at 11:52 am | Tagged as: Religious Websites
OK. That’s a slight exaggeration, but it’s the greatest web team I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. It’s the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly Web Workers. They are at it again this year, and how I wish I could be with them. You can read more about the faces I miss so much here: About General Assembly 2007 Online. And here’s a bit of on-site news from Sharing the knowledge
In 2002, the first year I was one of the GA Web Workers, I was asked to tell my story at church shortly afterwards. I expect things remain much the same, so here it is:
In 1993, I started to email the denomination’s leadership. I did it mostly because it was cheaper than long-distance. But back then email was a novelty around the UUA and thus I came to the attention of Deb Weiner, their Head of Electronic Communications. Deb is now a dear friend, and this year, to my great delight, she asked me to help their very talented webmaster, Julie Albanese. I was one of a team of 17 volunteers and 4 staff. We were reporters, editors, photographers, videographers, technicians and webmasters, working elbow-to-elbow long into the night. Our tables, strewn with an astonishing variety of equipment and connected by a sea of wires, were in a circle. I don’t know if it was intentional, but the circle reminded me of our chalice, plus having the more practical result that we all faced each other, and communication flowed freely across and around the room.
The highpoint for me came Sunday morning. This was our first year to do live webcasting, and it was supposed to begin with “The Service of the Living Tradition” at 10:00 a.m. We were flying by the seat of our pants, and back in the web workers room, we discovered at the last minute that the rental machines couldn’t handle streaming video. 10:00 came and machines around the room were giving error messages. My laptop showed no broadcast. Then there was a frantic call from the convention center floor, some technological wonder was wrought in seconds flat, and suddenly, on my laptop, there was a gorgeous live video stream of the Service. A big cheer went up around the room and everyone clustered around my machine. Then emails started coming in from around the continent as grateful UUs let us know that even though they couldn’t be in Quebec, they were with us.
Today, this continues to be one of my favorite parts of the vast and rich website we produced. The videos (15 all told) are still there. So are over 75 stories, hundreds of photographs and countless handouts. There is something there for all UUs, including coverage of things others are talking about today. All you have to do is go to www.uua.org.
Here’s hoping for General Assembly 2008.
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Anna Belle, I too had to miss being in Portland, though I’m enjoying editing from afar. It’s just not the same, not being in the room with the people (and computers and M&M’s and everything else) and not actually getting that GA energy directly!
The articles are already appearing from this year’s GA, and will be there when participants get home — whether to supplement their notes, download additional materials, or point their friends to for their information.
Planning already on GA 2008 …
Awwwww, you made me cry!
Miss you too!!!!
Thanks for the greetings, y’all! Hope to see you both next year.
Lance — Sorry I’m not there to pass the tissues.
Jone — Tell Bill I went to a good Tennessee wedding last night (in Fairview — pronounced Fahrview), and the groom’s cake was fried chocolate pies. Yum. Thank heavens they weren’t Moon Pies.
Anna Belle -
I think of you every time I pass the members board at The Mountain. It’s wonderful to see this connection with you. As Jone said, we are already planning for next year in Fort Lauderdale, and we really hope you’ll be there too!
Thanks for the great blog. And I wish I could’ve been in Fairview with you. The cake sounds… interesting. ;>