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Boutique Progressive Education Concept Back to Main Page | Who | Feasibility | Attracting Sponsors Campaign / Timeline / Correspondence [Develop timelined correspondence record of campaign for concept esp with State and Federal Government Ministers, starting below] Who's behind it? Just Google: "Hogan Sydney". Proposed Online Voting System for major issues effecting the school - more democratic, less Elitist, more practical - some parents can't make it to 6:00pm P&C Meetings, are not good at public speaking, English is not their first language, meetings are dominated by a few, not enough time to properly discuss all matters of concern. Some of the other reasons why we need a fair dinkum website: If you are looking at a school from the outside, thinking about enroling your kid there, or from even from the inside, and you want to know something about a particular area - in the modern world you should be able to Google that school and some keywords e.g. XYZ Public School Filmmaking Group and something useful should come up. We shouldn't have to try to phone up the Principal or the school office to find out information - they have better things to do. And this modern world certainly does revolve around "Content" - programming - for free to air TV, Cable TV, Internet TV and Internet "you name it", Mobile phone, Movies... Shouldn't there be more emphasis on things like Filmmaking in our education system. Thus the zeitgeist mantra: "We don't want to grow up watching DVDs, we want to produce them." The system as it operates at the moment, you can't see much happening on that score. It's all the traditional areas, which will do sweet FA for our kid's careers - competing against millions of other graduates of their generation. Feasability of a "BPE" site To those who question attempting to run a commercial, potentially money-making website outside the DET website - one thinks of the example running a Uniform Shop independent of the DET We are simply doing the same thing with a BPE website. But once it is all set up it won't need as much time to operate, the webmaster work can be spread around to more people - hopefully mostly students - adding another career feather to their cap - mostly content changes - copy and paste - no stock problems - more of a move to e-Publishing, even of the School Weekly Newsletter (eTribune) - What's On Pages - excursions etc. - savings on hardcopy / photocopying, which flows back to parents, and trees, more opportunities to find and attract local sponsors. So with the weekly Newslettter we encourage everyone to access it on the Internet - thus the extra advantage is that we can entice them to other important pages and links. Attracting Sponsors And that's a selling point in attracting potential local sponsors. They then know we are a school of over 100 families utilizing our website. For instance, there might be a '[School] Recommended' Real Estate ad, say for a well known local boy, Ben Ramsay Real Estate in Macleay St Potts Point, on the side of the page (just like Google does) which is useful to the parent - they take their business to Ben - the continuing financial support from valued sponsor like a Ben Ramsay to the school, again flows back as a benefit to that parent in reduced need to ask for money. With promotion / we have to be savvy (re evolutionary psychology viz reciprocal altruism - everyone wins or "nobody does anything for nothing" e.g. "Oh I'm a bit giddy I just gave blood [and I want evreyone to know it]"). We have to be able to attract a Ben Ramsay, a Tropicana Caffe, an ANZ Bank, et al in the first place. It's hard sell if we want them to write $10,000 in cheques over a year and they're not sure where the money goes or does anyone know they are supporting the school. Isn't it better to have an ad for a Ben Ramsay Real Estate bargain priced 2 Bedroom Apartment in Elizabeth Bay - under the ad a photo of Ben (linking to a video!) presenting the Principal with one of those new fangled "Electronic Blackboards" at special events, where there might even be some government ministers and media around - giving Ben extra exposure. Sponsors also want to know our website is attracting hits. So we need some media attention. On preferred suppliers - why not say we are all going to bank with say ANZ Bank (Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan is pushing making it easier to change banks in the light of the lack of community empathy). And if they don't come to the party we do a wholesale change to another one. Generally with a comprehensive, constantly updated site, it becomes possible to say "refer our website for more details, links, video, etc." And maybe with a fancy website we can attract more students and sell some of the excess uniform stock. Content / Contributions There are a lot of fancy mainstream websites out there with loads of money behind them, but take it from the man who fired Tom Cruise from Paramount Pictures, Sumner Redstone: "content is king!" Put it to the Vote We live in a democracy every parent and caregiver in the school is entitled to say about this. Put the XYZ Web idea to the Vote. |