wwfry.org email server is DOWN!

[Ed Lecuyer]

Hi all,

An unfortunate side effect of our new website is that (despite assurances to the contrary) it has impacted all @wwfry.org email addresses.

We are (painfully) aware of the issue and are optimistic that it will be promptly corrected by our new web host as soon as possible on Monday 9/19.

Thanks,

-Ed

[Bob Holmes]

That being said, Ed, I think you did a fantastic job with the new website.  It is smart and appealing, and easy to navigate.  Kudos to all involved, and I look forward to the new features still to come.

Bob

[Wayne Laepple]

What Bob said. Great job, Ed.

[Ed Lecuyer]

Credit for orchestrating the new web site goes entirely to Steve P. The site itself was implemented by our ticket agency, FareHarbor. They also maintain web sites for many other heritage railroad operations, including Strasburg Rail Road.

[Ed Lecuyer]

Unfortunately, we have (temporarily?) reverted back to the old web site. This outage has given our web team some "pause" to ensure things are actually working before going live.

The switchover broke many other things besides email, including links published for advertising purposes, the gift shop, the build11 fundraising page, and backend access to make modifications to the web site or host. Now that these are restored, we can move forward with ensuring a seamless transition for the next go-around.

[Carl G. Soderstrom]

Ed

Be glad you could go back to the old site - doesn't always work.

Happy Autumnal Equinox.

[Joshua Zukerman]

Has the museum considered Google Workspace or Microsoft Office 365 for email hosting (as well as other included benefits like large mailbox storage, shared mailboxes, cloud file storage, video conferencing, etc)? Both solutions are free for non-profits. I've set up a few of my IT clients who are non-profit with Microsoft Office 365 and they love it. Sign-up process isn't too difficult, just need to send in the 501c3 paperwork to Microsoft and they approve it usually in a week then setting up the Office 365 tenant. Email can even be migrated from a webhosting provider. Then you aren't particularly tied to your webhost if they are having issues with email systems. Microsoft also offers non-profits $3500 in free Azure credits so you could host the museum website essentially for free, with some minor administration needed.

[Ed Lecuyer]

In this case, FareHarbor would have hosted the site for free - and designed a beautiful new site for us. The catch is, of course, that FH adds a processing fee to online ticket sales. So, the more tickets we sell, the more they make. So their incentive in design and hosting is to maximize ticket sales.

This is not all of what the WW&F is about. Ticket sales are important, but also so is our volunteer culture and sense of community belonging - both of which are not necessary in full alignment with maximum ticket sales.

At any rate, we're meeting with FareHarbor on Monday to discuss next steps. We'll certainly keep the Google and MS options in mind.