GENOA feedback on website - meeting in person?

[Carly Gayle]

Hi Christopher,

I'm Carly from the GENOA communications team. Within our team, Chris works mostly with IT and systems development, I with content development, coordination and day-to-day communications, and Trudy Juriansz on communications with GEN International.

Chris forwarded me the email on progress with the new website - super exciting to see it coming along!

I've been meaning to touch base with you and chat about our general direction and activities, organizational structure and intranet, our preferences for web presence, and feedback on the new website. GENOA has just had our annual strategy meeting last month and is at a point of fresh energy and new clarity on our focus going forward.

You mentioned you are about 50 miles from Washington DC. I have been based in Indonesia for the past few years, but I am here in Gaithersburg, Maryland with family for the next 5 weeks. I would love to meet up in person while I am here. Do you have any time available this week? My schedule is flexible, and I can come to a place near you.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,

Carly

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[Christopher Kindig]

Hello Carly!!

Thanks for your email! What a great coincidence that you are in Maryland as well. :)

I do not have time available this week, as I am totally packed before actually flying to Findhorn on Friday, to meet with much of GEN International staff for a week. We have a full agenda, and I expect we will get a lot accomplished!

I would like to plan something when I get back, but I am conscious that I will need to catch up and also that the holidays will claim a lot of my time. What is the date you are in Maryland until? We can find out some time that works!

I found you on Facebook as well. :)

Thanks for reaching out, enjoy your time back home, and take care!

Christopher

--

	Christopher Kindig Director of Operations, IT Director Global Ecovillage Network (GEN International) Connect with us: Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn Scottish Charity No. SC043796
Connecting Communities for a Sustainable World www.ecovillage.org

[Carly Gayle]

Hi Christopher,

Good to hear back from you!

I'm here through January 11, and will be back in Maryland in late February for a longer time. Aside from Dec 15-16 and 24-25, and Jan 6-8, I'm pretty flexible over the coming weeks! No rush on planning, see how you're feeling when you get back from Findhorn.

For now, the GENOA team will talk through our website needs over the next week or so and will create for you a site map of our preferred menu of pages and footer. The standard menu is a good foundation and we will want to make a few additions and changes. In particular adding a place for story sharing that is distinct from news. And also setting up the site to reflect GENOA's identity as a place that supports and encompasses not only intentional-community ecovillages, but also the spirit of ecovillage that is present in many networks and movements in the region and in the heart of the people themselves (look forward to chatting more about how we see ourselves, and expressing our identity, when we meet up!).

Let me know if you have a preferred date by which you would like to receive our thoughts on the site map and other content.

It would be great to collaborate with you on setting up the main pages before the soft launch. After the main features are initially set up, our team should be pretty self-sufficient in updating and modifying our site.

We are happy with how the website looks and excited to start using it! In particular I'm grateful for the translation feature, which seems to work well, at least for Bahasa Indonesia and French (the two languages I can reasonably check it in). Really important to us here in Asia.

Enjoy your meeting in Findhorn, and the holiday season!

Cheers,

Carly

[Christopher Kindig]

Thanks for your email Carly!

Great, I will be in touch near the beginning of January to see if we can meet up sooner or in February!

I would love to receive your site map and content by the end of the year if that's possible? Then I can use it to refine your site in January before the soft launch.

So great to hear that you are impressed by the site! YAY!! Awesome confirmation on the languages; cheers!

Wishing you all the very best!

Christopher