| Your comments... |
The Web Team's response |
- Home Page is non-functional
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We corrected a scripting error that caused the home page to display improperly
for a small percentage of visitors. This was a terrible situation as it
appeared the website was inaccessible, but we've confirmed the change worked. |
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Celebrant's Schedule
- Celebrant Schedule updated more often
- I currently visit the site almost every day and think that the content
is great. However, I am curious to know why you dropped the daily celebrant's
schedule posting.
- The celebrant's schedule is only updated once the new month has begun.
Sometimes this means that if the first day of the month falls on a Sunday,
I can't see who is saying which mass until the day off. It would be
nice if the celebrant's schedule just listed the next upcoming four
weeks, instead of by month.
- The main thing I want out of the Website is to know who is celebrating
the mass.
- I didn't even know their was a celebrant's schedule until this survey.
I'll be looking at that for sure now!
- We check it every week to see which Mass to attend (based on the celebrant).
Don't need to check it more often.
- Celebrant schedule for Daily Mass would be helpful, but of course
that would be subject to the changing calendar demands of the priests
during the week.
- I visit when I want to know who is saying Mass, or when you put a
form I need online.
- I think the celbrants for daily mass should be included on the calendar
again; not just weekends
- more further advanced notice of the celebrant's schedule would be
nice
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We're now showing the celebrant's
schedule for weekdays and weekends; because of the challenge of scheduling
all of the priests, the schedule tends to be finalized shortly before the
start of the month. |
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Calendar Issues
- A front page list of upcoming events in the next four weeks.
- A lot of the information is "high level" and not all the
informative. For example on the calendar, the links for each day do
not provide a description of what the activity is, just when and where
it is taking place.
- A section on the home page of what's happening today and tomorrow,
especially extra late news on events.
- The homepage is a bit busy (sometimes I have to look for a bit for
what I want), but I don't know how to make that less so, since there
are a lot of activities going on at St. Charles.
- Don't know how it appears to those just coming in from outside the
church (is it confusing?)
- I think that it is a pretty good - if a little busy in terms of asthetics
- website.
- I do think that the view is a little busy.
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Trying to balance the concern of busy-ness on the home page, a selection
of highlights appears there with all highlighted events on the News
page (down the right-hand side) and on the highlights
for the month (linked from the top of the calendar). For all of the
month's events, which can number in the hundreds, see the calendar.
The calendar is primarily a scheduler. We look to ministries to provide
more details about their events in the bulletin, on ministries pages or
on special pages added to the site. We're still struggling to have ministries
and staff provide this information for posting in a timely way, such as
events that appear as bulletin inserts.
The home page does include late news on events when possible.
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Faith & Spirituality
- A short daily meditation would be nice
- How about a gateway to the diocese and other spiritual resources.
- Links to other Catholic sites
- Perhaps provide links to http://www.mobilegabriel.com (a great service
for readings, meditations and news) and the USCCB http://www.usccb.org/
- Link to readings
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Faith page has daily
readings and reflections resources, links to the Diocese and the other
ideas mentioned here. |
Homilies
- Updated homilies.
- Would like to see homily summaries by the other priests.
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The other parish priests have declined at this time to have their homilies
online. We've recruited new volunteers to keep the homilies
section updated. |
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Parish Registration
- I strongly recommend online parish registry. I've been attending for
a year and a half and am not registered. I'm not near the office during
its open hours, and would have registered long ago if there was an online
option. Also -- I occasionally provide music for weddings at St. Charles
and elsewhere. It might be helpful to put up a link with musicians'
contact information for engaged couples.
- It would be nice to be able to register as a member online. I've been
attending St. Charles for almost a year, but haven't made it by the
church office to register yet! Hopefully, I will soon. Thanks!
- Well, it's a done-deal now, but I wish we could have registered online.
It took me 5 years of near perfect attendance at Mass before I registered
-- and that was because I signed up for direct debit donations and the
office sent a form by mail to me. Also thought the online feedback form
for the Lenten small groups was really cool. I also signed up for the
groups online. Slick.
You do a great job!
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This request tends to come up each year. Our parish leadership wants
prospective parishioners to register only in person at the parish office
and does not want the forms available online for downloading. As a compromise,
the Web Team lists the information needed to
register when you come to do so in person.
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- WITHOUT NAMES A LIST OF PEOPLE AND THEIR NEEDS THAT WE MAY BE ABLE
TO FILL ON A ONE-TIME BASIS...LIKE YOU ALL USED TO HAVE, WITH A SCHOOL
CHILD NEEDING CLOTHES, OR AN OLD LADY NEEDING SPECIAL DIET FOODS, OR
STAMPS, OR AN IMMIGRANT NEEDING A PHONE CARD....
- what about setting up links to various on line websites where st charles
can get "referral" dollars. Should be easy to set up, encourage
parishoners to do it, and bring some additional money in.
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This idea comes up from time to time, akin to the existing volunteer e-newsletter,
but a volunteer has not come forward to shepherd such a project. |
- As a parish so involved in social justice issues, it would be helpful
to know about the activites we do to affect laws, legislation, policy.
Sharing information on homeless, housing, direct care, health care for
underserved communities, etc. would be yet another way for us to get
involved and make a difference.
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Social justice e-newsletter offers this
type of information. |
- Have you ever considered a volunteer "wizard" where someone
could input their interests and time available and the wizard could
suggest volunteer opportunities. For example, "I like kids and
have an hour or so per week to devote." The wizzard might suggest
Childrens' Lit of Word, RE teacher, Youth leader, or Mom's Baby sitter
opportunity. "I like accounting, but work during the day"
Wizard suggests finance committee member, etc.
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Great idea that comes up from time to time. Parish is working through
the process of getting the monthly volunteer list to function well. As with
the donations suggestion, a project of this magnitude would require a strong
leader to get agreement on database categories and to promote all groups
to participate. |
- I'd like to hear the results of the fundraisers and various events
that are promoted heavily. We hear pleas to participate ahead of time,
but then don't find out what happened afterward.
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Ministries have resisted in most cases sharing this information in the
absence of a parish-wide requirement to do so. Providing these details would
be interesting to parishioners and could help improve the results of future
fundraisers. |
- More activities for people my age (I'm 24).
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Check C'YA, St. Charles' Young Adults. |
- How about a parish history.
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You got it: parish history |
- I think it would be helpful to post bios of our parish priests (including
priests in residence.) It would be nice for newcomers and visitors to
know where our priests are from, what other parishes they've served,
how long they have been at St. Charles, etc.
- I wish shou had some background information on the staff, to make
them feel more familiar. Just a brief bio with their previous work experience,
current involvement in acitivities at the parish, how long they've been
at St. Charles, maybe educational background, and maybe the aspect of
St. Charles that drew them there.
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Clergy and staff photos are now on
the staff page. We're working on including clergy profiles. |
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Photos
- I would like to see more pictures after a featured event.
- more photos
- More pictures and current information on last minuet changes to schedules.
- More pictures.
- Pictures, like news of births, adoptions, etc.
- Perhaps a "Photo Week In Review" of the previous week's
parish activities would be a nice addition to your website. Bandwidth
requirements could be managed by deleting each previous week's photo
posting, and replacing it with the current (weekly updated) one. It's
just a thought . . . .
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We'd love to have more photos on the site, but are dependent upon the
ones sent to us by volunteers and limited capacity for editing and publishing. |
- it would be nice if funeral times for parishioners were listed on
the web site. Today I am trying to find out when a funeral is for a
friend of mine at St. Charles and no one in the office knew yet. By
the time the bulletin is printed the person would be buried before I
knew.
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We are working with the Circle of
Caring to provide timely announcements of funerals on the home page. |
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The unique opportunity inherent in any web site is to serve as a vehicle
for two way communication, i.e. establish a dialog between parties with
common interest. Otherwise, a site is little more than an electronic mailman.
Currently, StC web site does very little to stimulate such a dialog. I
feel this is a significant lost opportunity. Why not take some small steps
to create a positive information sharing experience for clergy/parish
leaders and general parishoners? I believe both clergy and general parishoners
would greatly benefit from such approach and diminish the risk of only
"...speaking to themselves". Some dialog-leading suggestions:
(1)provide link to each priest soliciting feedbck to homilies, outreach
programs, etc.
(2)initiate a "Discussion Corner" wherein clergy staff /others
would provide moral insight/guidance on social issues/church positions,
etc with provision for feedback.
(3)Have key ministries, once or twice year, provide info on progress
against key program objectives and needs.
(4) Provide cumulative (year to date) Parish Collections data vs gross
budget data. Current practice of only reporting a given week's collections
is not meaningful info.
- E-mail addresses for staff could be more prominent.
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These could be some interesting discussions!
For 1) and 2):
Contact information for the clergy is on the staff
page at the level of detail they are comfortable with.
Currently, parish leadership has opted for face-to-face communications
when discussing church teachings, such as the Conversations with Creedon
series.
A few minor interactive forays on the site have produced more heat than
light, including some political attacks and personal name-calling--some
involving deceased parishioners. The Web Team hasn't implemented blog-style
open comments because we don't have the capacity to monitor these types
of comments as closely and immediately as would be required. A main concern
is that something could appear on the site that is contrary to church
teaching (intentionally or not) and would give the impression of parish
endorsement. Opening the site to unmoderated comments also brings the
risk of non family-friendly comments and links that often appear, at least
temporarily, on some blogs.
We have taken steps to provide some more interaction, such as with polls/surveys.
A few years back we had a rating system for Fr. Creedon's homilies--with
his approval--but some parishioners were uncomfortable with the concept
and the ratings were discontinued. (The polls didn't attract a lot of
votes in any case.)
Volunteer capacity remains an issue as we're usually unable to receive
or to post summaries of discussions that are already taking place at parish
events. If we can't report on existing events, taking on new forums seems
unlikely.
3) Semi-annual ministry progress -- some reporting is done through the
parish council, but not necessarily tied to overall parish goals.
4) The parish budget is
reported on annually at all the Masses and online.
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Faith & Teaching
- How about a section that discusses the church's position on different
topics relevant in the news - or a place where questions can be submitted
and then are later answered. These "editorials" could be updated
Weekly or monthly.
- My daughter is in the Grade-Based Education classes on Sunday. It
would be nice to have a schedule of which topics they are discussing
each week so we could continue the discussions at home.
- A section for prayers for specific groups (ie prayers for married
couples, prayers for mothers, etc.)
- Question and answer site for why we do common Catholic practices.
A blob on what they actually do in RCIA and Landings. More on small
faith groups.
- It would be great if there were a weekly feature explaining one part
of our regular or seasonal liturgical practices - parts of the mass
or other ceremonies. What are their meanings, where did they come from,
what is the proper way to participate...etc? So often these things become
routine and their meaning gets lost. There were parts of the mass I
was never taught about. Why do we do them? What are certain colors used
for certain masses, and certain colors not used during parts of the
calendar? I think a one-a-week type of reference would bring a lot of
people to the site on a regular basis - and help people celebrate with
more meaning - and less out of routine. Thank you!
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We're looking at trying to offer more of this information through an adult
education section or by republishing RCIA materials. |
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General comments:
- It's a pretty good site. I don't visit it more often simply because
of other time commitments.
- Make site more than an electronically delivered standard/traditional
one way bulletin.
- It's a great web site with more information than a bulletin, and is
incredibly easy to read and use. There is nothing about its construction
or components that affect the frequency of my use.
- I just figure I get everything I need out of the bulletin.
- I go when I need information. It is almost always there. It has the
phone numbers if the info is not there. I'm not sure it needs more from
my perspective.
- I think the website should be more than just a parish bulletin or
contact center.
- I think the website is an excellent source of information and serves
to unite the parish community.
- I would not change anything. It is very informative just the way it
is.
- I like it the way it is. StCharlesChurch.org is a superior website
compared to other church related sites out there today.
- I think the website is terrific. St Charles has one of the best parish
websites and I have looked at several
- It's a great site!
- It's great as is!
- it's just right
- Keep it up to date; the posted EM schedule was prepared in July 05,
and only goes through March 06
- More up to date information, for instance, within the parish council
area
- It has all the information I am looking for.
- This is a great website, overall -- the best church website I've
come across.
- I just visit it when I have a specific question.
- You have a beautiful website; very technically oriented, and staffed
by "professional volunteers." You are an asset to your parish
and Church, and you are in my prayers. Thank you for continuing this
work, and for soliciting my interest in your website. God bless you
with His holy love!
- You have what I want. Thank you.
- I visit when I have a moment to do so. I Love this website! The Web
Team is out of control...what a great job you are doing!
- Off the top of my head I can't think of a thing. I like the website
and happy we have one.
- Profiles of Parishioners. Maybe accounts of funerals or weddings or
baptisms, etc. at St. Charles
- You all do a wonderful job of keeping our community informed. Thank
you.
- I think you are doing a great job! Congratulations to you all.
- EXCELLENT WEB SITE. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK.
- I THINK THE WEB TEAM DOES AMIGHT POWERFUL JOB!!!!!!!
- I think the website is a valuable communication tool for those with
internet access and computer skills. The web team does a fabulous job
keeping it current and responding to ministies with specific requests.
Some info is out of date and the folks responsible should feed the web
team new info.
- My compliments for the April 1 web site pages.
I read all of them last month and they were hysterical. They were excellent.
So more jokes would be nice.
- It's easily the best parish website I've ever seen. The wealth of
information that is always updated is great. I also like that you don't
have advertising, but I would understand if at some point in the future
you would need to have some. If you would like to have background instrumental
music on the website, please let me know. [From a usability perspective,
we don't have plans to offer music at this time.]
- Keep of the good work.
- Keep up the good work!
- Novenas would be nice to have accessible on the site.
- Please just keep on updating it. It is a font of information,
- Thank you for this very informative website.
- The gambling on the youth site make me uncomfortable.
- The Web team has done a terrific job of making the site more user
friendly and interesting. Thanks!
- This web site is better than 99% of other parish web sites. Don't
let anyone tell you otherwise. Thanks!
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