Richard said he is not a full time web site developer but could get something up and running for them quickly. They would need to think of a domain name, maybe something like neighborhoodgardens.com. The group could think on that because what he suggested might already be in use. As you think of names, try going to them using any browser. If you get a message that the site is not found, you have found a potential candidate. Try both name?.com name?.biz and name?.org. Use the .org if you consider yourself more of an organiztion and .com or .biz if you think of yourself as a business. Come up with a list of about 5 possibilities and vote on them in order of preference. Richard will help one of the volunteers register the domain. They would have to use someone's credit card to register it and it should be around $15-35/year. The higher rate would be if they needed to have the encrypted SSL interface. He said that given the low confidentiality of data that probably would not be necessary.

After getting the domain name registered Richard said he would help set up an account on a host provider. The one he uses is $5/month. This host provider is where he would put the web page. Again, someone's credit card would be needed and it would be automatically billed monthly. He suggested that after they establish a checking account maybe billing can be done directly to the checking account.

He said he would charge $20 to assist them with both the domain name registration and the host system setup.

Richard suggested that one or two of you need to be involved in how the domain is registered and also the creation of a host system where the web site will be hosted on the internet. He will be available to act as your IT person at an hourly rate or a flat monthly retainer fee, to be negotiated. It would be best if one of your group gets enough training to handle some operations.

The group then discussed what to have on the web page. After about 15 minutes a general agreement of something simple was voted on. Richard said he would do the simple implementation for $75. Part of that fee is the set up program to allow the group to log on and show the initial menu screen to get to the accounting and other programs as they are implemented.

Richard passed out a list of about 25 functions that he could implement on the web server once it's up and running. Each of the functions would be a program or built into an existing program. They didn't all need to be done at once but added as needed. He said that one great advantage to his suggested method is that the program and its source code would be on the host server. Admittedly either he or another programmer would be needed if some change was needed in the future. When ever needed the programs can be made to work together.

Any program would be usable by all board members after they logged onto the server. Some features, like accounting and the database might be best set up so only designated people can enter and change data. The data itself would be visible to all board members though.

Richard said that any prices he quoted going forward would be due and payable when the agreed functionality was shown to be working. He indicated that for the fixed price quotes it would be necessary for the group to set up very specific descriptions of what they expected the program to do. They can't drag out the process by changing their mind every week. He said he would work in small steps giving the group an opportunity to log on and see what the program looked at in various stages. In some instances he might charge an hourly fee if they only have a vague idea of what they wanted to do.

Richard suggested that the first item to implement was a simple implementation of an accounting program. Give the ability to enter income and expense items and details about each. The data would be stored in a database. Simple reports will be available showing monthly income and expenses. This program will be on the web server host and each board member could log on and see the reports. He would also set it up so that only the treasurer could enter or change data. They probably should designate one other person to act as backup. He said he would do this for $100.

Howard, the secretary, suggested it would be nice to have a database with information about all of the neighborhoods they deal with so contact information is available. Richard said he could do that also. He would create the database and they could enter the information online. He agreed to do this for $50. He suggested that they might designate a couple of people to be responsible for entering and making changes but the data itself is visible to all. Julie said she already had a list of everyone on her home computer and volunteered to enter it. Richard asked her to send him the list and if it was formatted in a reasonable format maybe he could 'import' it into the database. Her list would also indicate what various pieces of information they had so he knew what fields to have for the customer records.

So in the end, after paying the $15-35 annual domain name registration fee and paying for each program, the monthly charge is about $5.

As time proceeds, other functionality can be talked about and implemented as needed. Things such as mass emailing, event notifications, scheduling, automated backups... Over time the group should come up with ideas of seemingly small things that should help them manage the business.