Happy 2021 Troop 494

Greetings everyone, I hope you are all staying well and enjoyed the holidays. With the new year comes a new website (at least this year it does). I understand this might be the first time you are hearing of a new website, or you’re one of the few who heard a lot about it many months ago… and then it was never mentioned again. Well, regardless of your circumstance, this is the new Troop 494 website and I hope you come to use and enjoy it.

This process started all the way back on December 3rd, 2019 when I first contacted Scout Websites for more information regarding what they have to offer. If you want to get a quick rundown read the next two paragraphs, otherwise you can skip ahead.

A Quick Rundown

I think we could all agree our old website was in desperate need of some updating, was a little convoluted, and was also relatively expensive for what we were getting. Therefore, I took it upon myself to search for some better options. I came upon Scout Websites, a British website development firm that specialized in scout websites – the number one supplier of scout websites in the UK, and reached out to them for a quote. It turns out we would be their first attempt in breaking into the US market and therefore after about two months of negotiating and troop approval we made a deal.

Development on their end went pretty fast, and I was overwhelmed with the amount of content that was needed in order for them to progress. About half-way through development, as you all know, we had to deal with COVID-19. A major set back on my motivation to continue the project. And so I want to apologize for the time and resources I wasted on the troops part, it wasn’t until about two months ago, with starting college and all, that I picked up this project back up and saw it to its finished.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

You might be saying “The website looks great, but what does it mean for me?”. Let me start out by saying, there are still a few bugs (small issues) that have yet to be resolved, which I am currently fixing with the team from Scout Websites. Anyways, this website works completely different than the last one. It will serve primarily as a public portal for information. We can post pictures, news articles (like this one), events (non-subscribable).

In storing troop roster/information, documents, having email and calendar (subscribable) services: we will be using G Suite. Our package with Scout Websites includes our own domain: olathetroop494.org, which I was able to use to register for Google for Nonprofits, a free version of Google Business which many enterprises use at a global level. It however is going to be a bit of a learning curve before everything works seamlessly.

In time, all troop members can choose to have a premium Google account “yourname@olathetroop494.org”.

• Adult and scout leaders will be able to send emails/newsletters to any combination of members (groups) within the troop and easily create public events that parents, scouts, and anyone else interested can follow in their calendar application of choice.
• Scouts going for Eagle will be able to store an unlimited amount of documents and pictures that they are working on for free which they can easily share with other troop members for help and review.
• Posting to our Twitter, Facebook, Discord/GroupMe, and website will be as easy as sending an email to a specific address.
• We will also be featured on Google Maps, gain ad revenue through social media posts, and have advertisements of our own on Google for those searching BSA troops in the nearby area.

I hope that all of this will come sooner, rather than later. I promise to be more transparent in these updates and get feedback from all of you on the best way to go about this.

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your New Year weekend!