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DPChallenge Forums >> General Discussion >> Website templates for camera clubs - help please
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07/08/2015 04:23:43 PM · #1
I am the President of Kendall Camera Club and we need a new website. My Board of Directors and I would like to know if there are template based websites with the features that typical camera clubs need that are also reasonably manageable.

At our board meeting last night I compared our current website to Frankenstein in that it is a collection of parts, patches, and fixes that can be controlled only by Dr. Frankenstein. One member who had almost no experience with websites created it several years ago and he is the only person who can come close to managing it. The problem is that our website has become quite the beast and it is very time consuming for him to manage it on a good day and nearly impossible to keep up with it when glitches occur.

I asked another member to evaluate the website and give me options for a Plan B for when "Dr. Frankenstein" discovers that we are considering starting over. She gave me a comprehensive reply which sums up as "we need a new website". I am very happy with my template based website by Zenfolio. While many people who are more educated in web development might find a lot to be critical about with my website, it serves me and my clients well and I have hardly scratched the surface of all of the features that it offers.

With that in mind, are there any template based websites that you would recommend that are suitable for photography clubs as Zenfolio is for photographers? Thanks!

Message edited by author 2015-07-08 16:24:31.
07/08/2015 09:44:11 PM · #2
Sorry, no recommendations from me. But I like your current website and it seemed reasonably fast on my iPad. (I was curious if maybe Facebook would be possibility for the group - I have a couple of photography groups that work well using Facebook - so I per used your current website. After seeing your current website, you guys are quite the big group and obviously beyond simple Facebook.). Zenfolio can't be manioulated to work for you.

Good luck. Hopefully somebody here might have something for you.
07/08/2015 09:57:51 PM · #3
So I took a look and you are using the CMS I was going to recommend.

Joomla

It is very powerful and well documented open source CMS. There are all kinds of extensions "plugins" that can augment the sites functionality. As well, there are a ton of free and for pay templates that also increase the capabilities of the CMS.

I like Rocket Theme.

There are other CMS's out there like Mambo and wordpress etc. but I greatly prefer Joomla. So not the answer you want to hear but I think you just need someone to take on the task of learning Joomla then upgrading to the latest version and with the coolest extensions.

My $.02 anyway. Good Luck!
07/08/2015 11:17:58 PM · #4
You guys are running challenges under the name "DPC"! You comfortable with that?
07/09/2015 12:09:37 AM · #5
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

You guys are running challenges under the name "DPC"! You comfortable with that?


"Under the name 'DPC'"? What, exactly, do you mean?
07/09/2015 07:47:53 AM · #6
Did you try wordpress? easy to setup and there are tons of templates.

I have this and this and this.

If you look for photography theme in wordpress, you will find tons of them.
07/09/2015 07:52:37 AM · #7
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

You guys are running challenges under the name "DPC"! You comfortable with that?


is there a trademark on "digital photo challenge" or something? its like "appstore", its pretty generic.
07/09/2015 08:55:04 AM · #8
Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

You guys are running challenges under the name "DPC"! You comfortable with that?


is there a trademark on "digital photo challenge" or something? its like "appstore", its pretty generic.


Oh, that's what he is referring to? Geez! I wondered what the heck he was talking about when he asked about "DPC" but he didn't answer when I asked him.

No Bear, nobody at the world famous Kendall Camera Club has stolen the "DPC" from DPChallenge. The name of our less popular competition is "Digital Photo Challenge" and it is titled by plain English for what it is, not by copying DPChallenge. As Mike pointed out, it's pretty generic (and I still haven't found "DPC" mentioned on our website anywhere). Besides, I am not sure which came first: Our digital photo challenge or DPChallenge. But, if our's was established first, I wouldn't even think to ask Langdon if he was comfortable with the name of this organization.

Actually, nobody in our club seems to have ever heard of DPChallenge before I suggested that they check it out. An interesting note about that: When I did get members to take a look, one of them joined, entered one challenge and no longer participates. Another said that there were unimpressed with all of the bickering and pettiness (btw, I think your question was petty) in the forums and some of the others in the discussion agreed.

I was not "comfortable with that". I was very disappointed because I proudly mention DPChallenge quite often and use this place as an example to follow (not necessarily copy). We have recently been going through the debate regarding entries in our Clicktique (our more popular print competition) not complying with the theme which is very similar to what DPChallenge has gone through. Again, I proudly use DPChallenge as an example by citing the history of this issue here. As a result, I have been able to convince my board of directors and general members that this issue is best left to the judges who score the prints anyway just as compliance with a challenge description is left to the voters here.

While nobody at Kendall Camera Club has copied the term "DPC" from here, one person did use the challenges here last year as a guide for determining some of the themes for our Clicktique from 8/14 - 7/15, sometimes literally. I am sorry if you are uncomfortable with that. The themes for the next 12 months have been submitted by another person who didn't refer to DPChallenge for inspiration.

07/09/2015 12:52:24 PM · #9
You might want to look at this site.

www.portfoliositez.com

They have very user friendly templates for photographers.

And they have amazing support!
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