The use of the internet has grown in recent years. You may be surprised at the number of parishioners who have access to the internet. A parish website can help people who are looking for information about your parish. It can also be a means of helping your parishioners to find good Catholic material on the World Wide Web.
The first question to ask is "What is the purpose of the website?". You may feel that it is primarily to give accurate information about the parish - the times of Mass and other events, where the Church is, other activities that go on in the parish. It is likely that the purpose will not be, for example, entertainment or fundraising.
Having a clear idea of your aims helps in deciding what content to put on the website, how it is ordered, what has priority and greatest visibility. It will also inform decisions about the "style" of the website. When the site is ready, a link can be put on the Parish page of this Website (you can email the webmaster). It is important that the parish priest approves of the Website.
Creating a website nowadays is not difficult for someone with some experience of using computers. It is not necessary to pay a large fee for it to be done "professionally". Companies that offer website design services vary greatly in their quality and can tie customers in to annual fees and ongoing expenses for updating.
It is very likely that someone in the parish community can produce a good, simple and attractive website free of charge. There are many software tools for creating web pages and many "Office" programs now allow you to save files "as HTML" giving a ready-made webpage. A slightly more ambitious approach - but much more rewarding - is to learn how to mark up pages yourself. The Internet has many simple tutorials that can help with this. A good place to start is W3C schools. There are some other links on this "Technical links" page
An important consideration is how information is to be updated. Sometimes, websites start out very ambitiously with weekly "News" but then become out of date. You may want to keep a close eye on this as your site develops.
Parish websites have used a variety of services to host their site and nowadays, it is quite cheap to purchase a "domain name". The Archdiocese does not have a "policy" requiring parishes to use any particular service.
Generally avoid putting personal addresses and telephone numbers on the internet. The Parish address and telephone number are public information. Any other contact details might be email addresses of the form <anyone@your-parish.org.uk> Messages to these addresses can be forwarded to the private email addresses of the people concerned. Parish newsletters sometimes contain too much sensitive information (personal telephone numbers etc.) for them to be suitable for posting to the Internet on a parish website.
Particular care is needed with photographs of children. The advice of COPCA in this matter is all the more important when considering photographs published on the Internet.
Normal security procedures should be followed - responsible use of non-obvious passwords for any administrative access etc.
"Ownership" of the website should be clearly in the hands of the Parish. This is easily achieved if the site is hosted with Catholic Community (as is the Diocesan Website). If an individual uses the webspace of their own internet provider, problems can arise over the control of the content of the site. Thought should be given to arrangements when a parish priest is moved. It may be a good idea to keep a record of critical passwords in the parish safe.
All software used by the Parish should be properly registered with the appropriate fees paid. Use of unlicensed software should never be allowed as this is a form of theft, is against the common good and might expose the Parish to action for copyright infringement.
This is an important aspect of the World Wide Web. It is helpful to address this question from the start so that you do not have to correct all your pages at a later stage. There is further information about accessibility on this Website.
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The Archdiocese of Southwark is a Registered Charity No. 235468