© 2018 Kathleen Swadling
© 2018 International Urantia Association (IUA)
The website for Urantia Association International at https://urantia-association.org has a new feature allowing for multiple “subsites.” A subsite is a website that is joined to a main website, but has the appearance of a stand-alone website with its own unique domain name.
In January we were pleased to announce to the Representative Council (RC), consisting of the Presidents and Vice Presidents of all the National and Local Urantia Associations, that we can now offer them a valuable opportunity to create their own subsite at no cost! The main website has been upgraded to support this new option for our leaders throughout the world. There are several benefits for those associations who decide to take advantage of this service:
- Developing a website and keeping it maintained can be very costly and time consuming to an association. There are no development or maintenance costs for a subsite (unless a more complex website is desired.) A simple-to-use template has been developed which only requires input of content.
- A dedicated website provides associations with a web location providing the ability to help people find other readers, promoting local news on activities such as study groups and events, and developing opportunities for service outreach in spreading the teachings of The Urantia Book.
- All costs for the server, domain name fees, technical support, upgrades and backup are part of this complimentary service.
Each association will appoint at least one dedicated volunteer who is willing to learn how to upload and manage the content of their subsite. The website software is user-friendly and easy to learn. The volunteers who currently manage the main website originally learned without having had any prior website or Information Technology (IT) experience. Members of the Communications Committee will be providing all the necessary training and support as a free service to motivated leaders. Our team has a direct link to the Association’s professional Webmaster for any technical issues that cannot be easily solved.
The Association’s first subsite has been created by the Australia and New Zealand Urantia Association (ANZURA)—it was the “guinea pig.” It can be viewed at https://anzura.urantia-association.org to reveal the kind of content that is possible. A template theme has been developed for the subsites so that they all have a similar look and feel to the main site, but there is flexibility for expressing local identities through the use of images and text.
Already several associations have requested a subsite and we encourage all chartered associations of the Urantia Association International to take advantage of this offer. Please feel free to contact me at communications@urantia-association.org for further information.