We Have a New Website!
Hello Temple Sinai.
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE! I think it is outstanding, clear, and inspiring. We are so blessed to have had so much time and devotion to the existing website given by David, a volunteer, and how much time and devotion has been given by volunteers, particularly Pat Sears, to create this new website.
For members, the Temple Sinai website helps us know what’s going on, keep up, and for the past 18 months, find ZOOM links. At the same time, for someone looking online for a local synagogue, clicking around our website is how they decide whether to get in touch or come to a service. This new website does a beautiful job of welcoming potential members, while also serving our existing congregations needs.
Shehecheyanu! I am truly grateful for reaching this important goal.
A BIT OF HISTORY. Our current website came about when the URJ (Reform Movement) moved all affiliated temple websites to a new platform. Our turn came the month before my first High Holy Days here, and with much help from David Punia, we got the new website put together. There were many problems with the platform (such as every Reform temple event in California suddenly filling our calendar while our events weren’t posting). Again, David put in hundreds of volunteer hours helping us manage it. Almost two years ago, David and I first sat down to talk about how we could overhaul the website and make it more user-friendly and attractive. We were working on that when COVID hit, and we needed the website to stay connected so reworking it in the midst of that didn’t feel possible. Earlier this year, as we started getting vaccinations and dreaming of getting ‘back to normal’ (sigh), a group of us started again talking about updating the website. There were many opinions and options, but we decided to build an entirely new website using a different, more intuitive user-friendly platform. This helped us avoid having the website go down for long periods of time while we worked on it. David was now both keeping up the current website and running ZOOM for services, events and classes, so Pat Sears agreed to take on the project and coordinated the process of getting the new site ready. A consummate professional, Pat led a process with the board of thinking about Sinai’s strengths and personality, and how we can best communicate that. This new website is the culmination of that process.
FEEDBACK. We want your feedback, but this is a sacred community so let’s be caring in how we give it, aware of how much work has already been put in. We are friends so let’s do our best to hold one another with respect and empathy even when -especially when - we disagree about details. It is also important to note that new websites take a bit of time to get used to. After Thanksgiving, we will be sending out a feedback survey so look for that.
PHOTOS. You might notice some “stock photos” on the new website. We are in the process of getting newer pictures (with permission and at a high resolution) to replace those stock photos. The good news is that editing this site is easy enough that I can do it!
MENUS and TABS. In this process, I have looked at more temple websites that I ever wanted. We looked at famous synagogues and obscure ones, award winning websites and random synagogues that people suggested. We learned a lot, copied things we liked and avoided things we didn’t, but I can tell you there is no perfect way of doing menus. There are some things that just don’t fit easily, and people are very different in how they look for things. Please ‘poke around’ and get to know the website, and if you have suggestions for improvement, please let us know.
Again, what matters most to Temple is getting the site launched so people looking at our website will be engaged and not click away. As Hillel said, “the rest is commentary.”
Rabbi Edleson