Web Team Report September
The newly installed New York State Hibernian Web team has been hard at work since our installation in Syracuse earlier this summer. Our team is made up of Webmaster Kieran McGirl, Deputy Webmaster Chad Ghastin, Deputy Webmaster Sean Murphy and Deputy Webmaster Sean McGirl.
The biggest thing we have been working on has been this website specifically. We launched in the first week of August and our goal is to bring the New York State Board into the modern times. This new website will help us in many facets of our goals as Hibernians, we have listed those below.
RECRUITMENT
From the recruitment side we now have our own automated web based membership application. Once the form has been filled out the data goes directly to our New York State organizer who will funnel the newly processed applications to the proper County Presidents and so forth. This new application will enable our order to grow exponentially. This application is linked directly to our new AOH QR code poster ads which will maximize visibility and ease of access for those interested in our mission.
FUNDRAISING
The way our new website is built and set up has afforded us new opportunities within the realms of fundraising. Using the stripe business applications we now have the ability to host and run an online store. We initially launched this to facilitate signups and registration with the second annual golf outing. In the future we hope to host clothing sale fundraiser as well as other fundraisers. The funds are directly deposited into our AOH Bank account and the receipts are all logged neatly and accurately by the platform. I look forward to using this new online store option more heavily in the future for the betterment of our order.
EVENT PLANNING
As we all know one of the largest aspects of the Hibernians is the community engagement that our events and fundraisers create. On the state level it can be come difficult to keep track of the different events each of or individual divisions are hosting. To alleviate this issue we have launched the brand new event submission form at this link This form allows all Hibernians hosting an event to submit the information to the state board so that we can aid in promotion on our website and social media channels. We hope that this new digital addition will make it easier for divisions to communicate their events and scheduling with the State Board.
SOCIAL MEDIA
First and foremost on this front I want to give a massive hat tip to Deputy Webmaster Chad Ghastin who has really grabbed the Social Media bull by the horns since our board has taken over. We started our efforts by relaunching our New York State Board Twitter account ( https://twitter.com/NYAOH1 ) and completely creating our own Instagram account to go along with our already impressive presence on Facebook. One of the most difficult aspects of managing an organization like the New York State AOH’s social media channels is the mass of requests for posts throughout a day. To try and make this process easier for our team (who is handling and facilitating those requests) we have launched the Social Media Submission Form which can be found at this link. We hope that this form will make it easier on us to make sure that all posts can be made from our pages. We have asked for a 3 days notice rule for posts which can be waivd pending special circumstances on a case by case basis.
NEW YORK STATE AOH NEWSLETTER
Another important improvement that our tram has been able to bring forth to the New York State Board has been the implementation of an updated and more aesthetically pleasing format for the Quarterly newsletter. Because of the size of our board and committees in the past our newsletter has been very bulky and to be honest intimidating to look at let alone read and process. We have decided as a team that the best way to ease up this process would be to use the newsletter as a sort of launching point to our new website. We cut down on the content from the submissions that actually make it into the newsletter and instead lin k our audience to the webpage to consume the content that they see fit and relevant. This will both increase interest in our actual newsletter and web traffic to our new site hopefully the cross pollination of content will be beneficial to the order as a whole.
WHAT’S TO COME?
Our hope as the New York State Ancient Order of Hibernians web team collectively is to continue our growth and prevalence within the order in the coming months. One of our initial goals is to create a database to honor recently deceased members of our order. This will take some time and coordination between our team and the various cou nties and divisions. We are eager to get to work on this and think overall it will be an asset once completed. We also hope within the next few months to launch a fully online clothing sale fundraising effort. This will utilize our new e-commerce capabilities and help to raise much needed funds for the order as a whole.
If you any questions comments or concerns regarding the New York State Web Team please do not hesitate to reach out.
Kieran McGirl
New York State Webmaster mcgirlk@gmail.com