GORC Website Launch Party This Friday March 29th, 5pm, Civil Life Brewery, STL

OK, I'm having a party to celebrate the launch of GORC3.0 as I like to call it.

I've invited the Spry Digital team down for drinks - they are the developers that did all the major programming, functionality, process logic and theming for the new site.

This is an informal gathering... do not wait for long-winded speeches as they will not come easily after a drink or three. This is a celebration of a very long 6 months of my life dedicated to taking GORC to the next organizational level.

I truly believe our new site will surpass 90% of all mountain biking club / organization sites. I am very proud of it.

That said, let's all gather and hang out at Civil Life. They have a loft, they have dart boards, they have tours of the the place.

Civil Life is awesome. It is also a cash only establishment. The people are great, the beers are amazing. It's by far my favorite brewery. The partners are cool.

Even if the website is a little late to the party I'm still having it THIS COMING FRIDAY STARTING AT 5pm at

The Civil Life Brewing Company
3714 Holt Ave.
St. Louis, Mo 63116
Planet, Earth

SEE YOU ALL THERE. MATT HAYES

Building A New Resource For Mountain Bikers and Volunteers: GORC's New Web Site

Since August of 2012 GORC has been quietly building its new web site behind the scenes. The large project is being managed by GORC's web administrator who has been working long nights to ensure the new site is both functional and usable.

GORC submitted two grants which were both awarded. One is an Every Day grant from the National Environmental Education Fund (NEEF) which is made possible by Toyota. The other is an REI grant that is focused on non-profits that are making it a goal to get more volunteers out to local 'giving back' events such as our trail building days. We are very thankful for receiving these major grants as this project would not be possible.

We have partnered with the local web development firm, Spry Digital that specializes in non-profit site building and the Drupal/CiviCRM platform. This content management system was extensively researched and is currently the best open-source membership-focused system. This platform allows for decentralized content management and a feature-rich contact resource management (CRM) system that will allow GORC to attract new members, track volunteer activities and report to land agencies. CiviCRM is the same platform IMBA has chosen to use in its Club Chapter program and overall membership tracking.

It has been our goal to showcase the development going on in the background but it hasn't been until this past week that time could be devoted to anything else but the development of the new GORC site. We have included only screenshots of the back-end management system and not the public domain web site as it is still currently being themed by Spry Digital.

The tentative launch date is March 21st but that is dependent on several factors. Think of it as a floating launch date. GORC is planning a website launch party at the Civil Life March 23rd (tentative). Stay tuned for additional details - and once we know the site will be up and running.

Project Summary:
Site Platforms: Drupal 7, CiviCRM 4.2.0, IPBoard 3.4.2
Other Platform Tie-Ins: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google Business Mail, Mailchimp, Paypal
Development Time: About 7 months

Funding Sources: 
NEEF Every Day Grant made possible by Toyota
REI Gives Grant
Disaster Recovery Journal (DRJ)
Other private monetary donations.

Screenshots of the Back-End Administration and Contact/Membership System:

Check back in the coming weeks for additional blog posts about this exciting new project that is about to launch.

Update 1: In Dev: GORC 3.0

This project started in early October and is being built after-hours and when I have the time.

Of course, it is much more complicated than I originally envisioned and I had already anticipated a steep climb.

Some features may or may not make it in the first generation of the new site but I'm trying with the help of Rob B. to make it happen.

The site platform will be Drupal 7.x with CiviCRM 4.x handling membership and volunteer hours. I'm also researching a good message board that can 'bridge' the user information so that we all don't need three sets of id/passwords to get around the site. The IPBoard looks promising and is the same one over there on stlbiking.com

How committed am I to this project? Well, I've bought two books so far (about 950 pages total), joined the STL Drupal Users group, teamed up with Rob B and his technical skills and testing server environment, joined Drupal.org, CiviCRM and Issue Tracker (bugs). Spry Digital in St. Louis looks promising for technical framework issues regarding CiviCRM.

However, the club needs money to 'finish' the site's development concerning features and frameworks I may lack the time/expertise to develop. I would say that we roughly need $2,500 - $5,000 to completely finish the site.

Did I mention a site-wide Sponsor system will be in place?

Anyway, what I'm trying to convey is that this project has a long way to go. Once the content is in place, permissions and roles are set, bugs are fixed (yes, there are problems), the final step will be theming; as you can see below, I don't care what it looks like at this point in the project - I'm just happy it works.

Features, opinions, site flow, other mountain bike related sites that you like, send them my way via comment on this post.

Under active development: Some time next year you can touch

I enjoy doing this, I find it interesting. But, it is somewhat stressful knowing the club's modernization hinges on what I know and can do (and I know just enough right now to stay clear of programming code at this stage). With bike time on the back burner and working on this from 7pm-12am almost every night, it's easy to forget that this is a hobby task and not a job.

It'll be cool when it's finished. Especially the administration side.

MattH

Building Community . . . and Trails (Def Trails!)

What keeps gorctrails.com all together, you ask? I don't really know. Passion, I suppose. Maybe a bit of hobbyism to keep tabs on the online industry. I used to do this everyday, now I just play at night, sometimes all night, trying to keep it all going.

It's not that hard really; I bring it all on my own. And that's the thing... the club is more than one person; it's all about what members put into it. Input quality=output quality. The club's soul and vibe is the culmination of all our active members contributing to the greater good that is mountain biking advocacy in St. Louis.

Maybe you weren't riding 10 years ago but check it out -> Chubb and Castlewood were your main line options. You could ride doubletrack Lost Valley if you were really wanting to explore. St. Louis trail riding has come A LONG WAY since GORC formed in 1998. We started with Matson and expanded to include all the trails that are listed on our Trails tab.

I personally want our club to be the best in the midwest. Something other clubs would like to copy. I want to increase our membership, retain all you awesome people and offer even more in the way of events, socials and, ahem, merchandise. I feel that we are on the cusp of the next great phase.

We want - no - need, that. All of the above.

Somewhere along the way I've grown from an average GORC member to the website administrator to what I would now say, club marketer. I've been with GORC since 2001 and it was a life-changing social/outdoor activity move for me. I may be a somewhat shy person until you get to know me but I feel that it is necessary to promote the club online in all social circles.

You would not believe how many mountain bikers don't even know we exist. It's impressive the number of people who think trails magically appear overnight courtesy of the Stimulus Plan.

This isn't the most well-written call-to-action plan. I'd say it was written on a whim just before bed time, actually. I don't have all day to dial in my thoughts, you know, work and all......

What I'm trying to say in all of this is that we need you. You probably have skills we don't possess. We need writers, we need trail stewards and we could use some good connections to other like-minded folks who might be entirely outside the bike circles.

Here's what I want you to do; spread the word, tell everyone about GORC, the website, bookmark us on Facebook, and Twitter and YouTube and keep telling everyone you see out on the trail that GORC is there for the biking community.

We have big ongoing plans for trail riding opportunities in St. Louis and the surrounding region.

Keep in touch!

FWIW, here's a slight lift of the curtain. Never mind the guy behind the laptop. Tap your Sidis and grab your bike. Awesome local trails await. See you out there.


Matt H
aka seamonkey