Archive for the ‘Website’ Category

Dear fellow Old Boys,

The concept of Doba “Uncles” or “Big Buddies”, (and I shan’t use the word Godfathers,) has been promoted before but we have new methods to spread the word. The proposal is we change the “Business Directory” on the website to a list of those Old Boy’s prepared to assist, advise, counsel, train or simply encourage other younger Old and Current Boys.

It is envisaged any given senior Old Boy would list his particular field of expertise or experience with contact details, and any registered member of the site could then contact anyone listed for assistance in their area of expertise. And I include in the meaning of “expertise” simply that of having been there, done that, parent of mature children, willing to talk and give an alternate perspective, etc. And yes, I will say it, ……. even down to reformed alcoholics, drug abusers or those who have suffered clinical depression even though I am sure no-one on this list is any of those, although one never knows. Everyone has the ability to support, in some field, it may be separation issues , handling the death of loved ones, dealing with unemployment, pastoral care, liquidation of a business, personal budgeting, whatever. Let’s be that proactive.

We could even go so far as where the assistance that could be provided may be so “contentious” that the willing provider could have anonymity and be given the right of contacting anyone requesting assistance in that area. Obviously the webmaster would need contact details, but I am confident it could be made secure.

Please indicate if anyone would be interested in providing such assistance, as it would be nice if when we launch the list on the website, we could pre-load it with some profiles and contact details.

Kindest regards,
Bill Barker

Excerpt from ‘The Dilworth Legacy’ Volume II, by Murray Wilton. Pages 877-878.

Website Admin Notes: The new Principal referred to in this excerpt is current Principal, Donald MacLean (1997 – ). It would be my understanding from reading this excerpt that we can obtain from the Trust Board two images; the Coat of Arms and ‘Dilworth’ in some sort of package (different colours and sizes). We can then use these on the Website along with the sub-title ‘Old Boys’ Association. What I am not clear on is where the words ‘The’ and ‘Incorporated’ fit in. ie ‘The Dilworth Old Boys’ Association Incorporated’. There is no mention of these in the excerpt. Please use the comments facility at the bottom of this article to express your opinons.

Excerpt starts here:
At the first Board meeting attended by the new Principal, the question of the ‘physical image’ of the School was raised by Trustees who wished to project a particular view of Dilworth through communications, documentation, signage and uniforms. There was a perception that the School’s public image and ‘branding’ were blurred by a plethora of different names, uniforms, ties, letterheads and even different interpretations of the Coat of Arms. At various times the Old Boys’ Association had, without authority it must be said, tampered with the Coat of Arms and produced variations which did not meet with the approval of the Trustees. One particular version of the badge was a simple Dungannon castle with the abbreviation DOBA beneath it. The Trustees, for the first time, established a set of rules for the use of the School Crest.

Coat Of Arms

One of the first signs of the new image was the dropping of the ‘School’ from all letterheads, signs, badges and other insignia. From the end of 1977 the total enterprise, including the Trust Board, went under the simple heading ‘Dilworth’, with sub-titles ‘Trust Board’, ‘Senior Campus’, ‘Junior Campus’ and ‘Old Boys’ Association’. The same policy was applied to signs erected at all entrances to the two campuses and even to the badges embroidered on uniforms and ties. The new image was professionaly designed and featured a new styled version of the word ‘Dilworth’ and a copy of the full Coat of Arms.

Branded Dilworth

It was certainly a modern approach and in keeping with commericial notions of how an enterprise should project its image and intellectual property to the public. Many among the Old Boys regretted the loss of familiar icons and names, just as those of much earlier generations had lamented the demise of the old name ‘Dilworth Ulster Institue’ in 1927, along with the first badge and its attendant motto. But nothing in this modern world remains static, and the perception that ‘new’ and ‘different’ must be better pervades every aspect of a constantly changing society. In the case of the Dilworth transformations it can fairly be stated that it was a necessary cleaning-up exercise which has streamlined the formerly somewhat cumbersome terminology and branding.

Old Boys and other Dilworth Community members, you can now register and logon to the Site. At present your registration will enable access to the Forum. Soon we will provide other benefits of being registered such as being able to contribute news articles and providing access to your subscriptions history.

I apologise that we have not brought across the logons from the Website we launched in 2006.

We will also be looking at linking your logons to our Old Boys database. Bill Barker has made some suggestions with respect to this which I will discuss with the Council.

 
I have had a few emails and discussions with various people about the header we currently have on the Website. We need to ensure that we have approval and direction from the Dilworth Trust Board to use their branding elements. So, I apologise for any misuse to date and promise that I will get direction from the Trust Board.

Bill Barker has informed me that there is a discussion on this very topic on page 877 of the Dilworth Centenary books. I will have a read of this when I get home tonight. We understand that there is no actual font.

Nevertheless, rest assured that we will get to the bottom of this and we will end up with an approved and branded header for our Website. I am currently trying to make contact with Mr Martin Thomson (Trust Board General Manager)

I will keep you all informed of progress on this.

Update: Bill Barker has kindly created our new Website header, so I have put that up. Good work and thanks for the effort Bill.

Final Update (18 Jan 2010): We have decided to stay with the Header that Bill Barker produced. I and others like it and it does not create any branding issues. I have spoken to Mr Martin Thomson and let him know that this is no longer a concern.

 
There will be a forum added to this Website in the next few days. Your Website Admin is currently reviewing the forum options and once a selection has been made will get it up. We want a forum which is basic and very easy to use. Once it is up, we will be hoping the Old Community will make good use of it.

Update: the new forum is up. Not perfect yet, but I will do more work on it. Enjoy.

 
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.  People write short updates, often called “tweets”  of 140 characters or fewer.  These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.

We have set-up a twitter for the DOBA, called “dilwortholdboys“. We would have liked to use “doba”, but unfortunately someone else is already using that. 

We have then set-up a link to the “dilwortholdboys” twitter on this website (you will see it in the sidebar to the right), so that it will show what we are twittering about. Now the council can easily send short messages, anytime they want, about what they are up to and these messages will immediately be placed on the Website. We can even send them from our mobile phones. Pretty cool aye??

Welcome, Old Boys and members of the Dilworth community. The first thing we would like you to do – now that you are here and reading this - is to leave your details and a message in the Guest Book.

We are now placing newsletters on the website. See here.

The Dilworth Legacy by Murray Wilton is for sale NOW. Please see full details here.

We now have a special page for Old Boy Obituaries. See that here.