SSA Website disaster

[John Foster]

Why does the SSA not get their website updated so you can renew your membership online?  It is a total disaster!  Whoever is in charge of this mess, PLEASE get it updated and bring it into the 21st century.  It doesn't matter how many fancy background videos you have playing, if it can't do basic things like allow members to renew their memberships, etc.  PLEASE!!!!!

[David S]

The May issue of Soaring has an article detailing the project now underway to replace the website with completion expected this year.  To quote:

"Our new website is only one part of the new digital presence which is essen-tial  for  the  future  success  of  the  SSA.  This   transformation   also   integrates   our  digital  communications  strategy,  ensuring  consistent  messaging  across  all  platforms.  It  will  also  significantly improve the way the SSA office man-ages  the  workflows  around  member-ship  management,  ecommerce,  event  organization and other activities."

   ...david

On Sun, Jun 28, 2026 at 12:40 AM John Foster <johngf...@gmail.com> wrote:

The website is so bad I don't even have it bookmarked.  It is basically worthless for my needs.

On Saturday, June 27, 2026 at 10:37:42 PM UTC-6 John Foster wrote:

Why does the SSA not get their website updated so you can renew your membership online?  It is a total disaster!  Whoever is in charge of this mess, PLEASE get it updated and bring it into the 21st century.  It doesn't matter how many fancy background videos you have playing, if it can't do basic things like allow members to renew their memberships, etc.  PLEASE!!!!!

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[Gordon Wingate]

It would be great to see some tangible near-term results of this effort. The tools for website development are so good now that this timeline should be accelerating if a capable team is on board.

Gordon Wingate

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[Davis Chappins]

Gordon you are correct.

In 2025 built turnpointmanager in a few months. If I did it again it would take me a weekend.

React/Vite + expressJS with supabase as the db. Total cost to host and maintain - $0/month.

Believe me I have offered to make the SSA a site, it would be pretty simple, NextJS with a headless CMS, and stripe webhooks for things like membership renewals. I'd pair it with supabase for auth and to house the member and contest database tables. It would be done in a few weeks. And it would certainly cost less than $500k.

[Deane Williams]

Totally agree. It sure looks like someone is really dragging their feet on this project. Most people don't know how easy it is to make a website and I am afraid the SSA has fallen into that trap.

[Andrzej Kobus]

Yea, we will probably overpay the second time.

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[Andrzej Kobus]

Was scope for this work defined, what about acceptance criteria.

Was there a request for proposals for this work? 

If so how many vendors was the request sent to? 

What were the proposals that came back?

I hope we have someone managing this who has experience managing technology projects, not like the first time. 

[christopher behm]

I'm guessing all these questions while good, are pretty tardy, since this is a done deal already. 

I remember reading about people being all up in arms about the cost maybe a year ago. 

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From: rasp...@googlegroups.com <rasp...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Andrzej Kobus <soa...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 30 June 2026 11:08:08
To: rasp...@googlegroups.com <rasp...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [RAS_Prime] Re: SSA Website disaster

 

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[Andrzej Kobus]

It might be so but it would be nice to know the contract was awarded in a transparent way and proper process was followed. 

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[Eric Greenwell]

I suggest you call your Regional director, who should know how the contract was awarded.

Eric

[Andrzej Kobus]

I will, I find it surprising that a RFP, if issued, was not publicized widely to gather competitive bids. That in itself is a problem.

Andrzej

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