Sample Pack website

Date: March 11, 2010

Overview

This generalized website framework for Pack 5 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was developed in the Spring of 2009 and is preserved here as it was then hosted to provide a comprehensive example of approach and topic areas specific to our District, and, it is hoped, will serve as a starting point for Units looking to create a new Internet presence for their program offerings.

Purpose

The design objectives for this website were three-fold.

Starting point and updating concept

All pages have the same layout (designed in FrontPage 2003). The blue bar at the top identifies it as Pack 5, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, along with a tagline about its history. To the right of the Pack number, the user is told where s/he is in the navigation. For the most part, this is merely a reference, as everything drives from the Calendar on the Home page. However, it can help Adult Leaders distinguish between information that is accessible to the entire Pack, versus that to which there is limited, "Private," access.

The right column, beginning with the Garfield Cub Scout image and "Pack 5 is about doing great things," is static. It introduces the Pack to newcomers, and goes on to summarize the rank structure by grade-level. A link to make contact is provided. This shouldn't need to be updated often, other than as the Cubmaster changes. Of course, as "times" change, the Pack Committee and its communications volunteer may want to make adjustments.

The left column is the real "working" column. It's positioned as it is because (a) the Calendar is what you're really offering as value to the families here, and (b) it's where those already in your Pack will most often refer back.

All pages on the site have at the bottom links for the three most common information needs:

Last but not least, like-kind sections can be used to create new sections as needed. For example, the preparation and packing information provided for the Spring Cabin Campout is largely applicable to other camping and facilities overnight outings.

File structure

The following hierarchy is designed to provide a helpful approach for organizing material placement without creating burden or duplication.

Rather than attempting comprehensive coverage of all possible Pack activities and events, the examples provided here are designed to imply places where such offerings unique to your Unit might be placed. For example, our "Spring Cabin Campout" represents an overnight and structure for information and documents that a Pack might also want to consider for a trip to the USS Silversides. The "Cake Auction" parallels a Pinewood Derby, Space Race, or Raingutter Regalia. 

Advice

Now into its one-hundredth year, there are some things in Scouting that will always remain a notebook-and-bankers-box approach to organization. Fantastic as websites and the Internet can be for disseminating information, it's sometimes better to keep photos, instructions, and notes related to, for example, a Pinewood Derby track setup stored with the track itself.

Having actually served as a Cubmaster myself, my practical advice after developing this website from scratch would be to keep things in perspective. Use your website to reach out into the community for youth who need to be excited by your program and can benefit from joining it; to help their parents understand the tangible benefits and the ways in which we can help them uniquely build a parent-son bond through shared experiences during these too-quickly-passing years. Use your site to make it easy to anticipate events, to prepare, and to get there and do them safely.

At the same time, use good judgment. Review safe Scouting guidelines, then think and re-think about personally identifying information you may choose to post on this very public medium. As "protected" as we'd like to think we can make some areas of our site, there's a story everyday about hackers who steal more than identities from online disclosures.

Yours in Scouting,

District Vice-Chair, Membership
Huron Trails District