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Date: 8/23/2023
BELCHERTOWN — Communication Committee Chair Chris Martin has been a part of the committee since last November and is excited with the progress he has seen so far.
One of the tasks the committee has taken on is updating the town website.
“It’s outdated, it’s difficult to find things. The overall usability is not great so a lot of that needs to be updated, Martin said.
The Communications Committee has been working with Revize, with which the town has a contract.
Revize is the company that works with local municipalities on developing and updating their website and Martin provided an update on the process.
He said, “It’s going slower than we would like. There are a lot of hangups with our website service provider Revize and we are working though those currently. They’re creating a staging environment where we are going to sort of rebuild the look and feel of the site.”
According to Martin, Revize will essentially make another copy of the site by carrying over the primary information and from there, the committee will rebuild the homepage and each committee page and update much of the content that hasn’t been in a long time.
One of the key features the committee wants to do, according to Martin, is build a community section and a business section.
The community section would feature information on the library, the senior center, the family center or dog licenses, for example.
The business section would be more geared towards how to start up a business in Belchertown, how to keep your business running in Belchertown.
“It’s more geared towards anyone who is coming in to create a business or is looking for their yearly forms for whatever compliances they need with the town. Just stuff to make it easier for the two separate groups of individuals coming into Belchertown or that reside in Belchertown both business and residential to find information much faster than they can today,” Martin said.
The Communications Committee is also working on implementing a social media policy for the town.
The social media policy would be for town officials, town staff and the volunteers for the different committee and boards.
“It’s going to make sure that it covers all the responsibilities around social media. What they can do, what they can’t do. We are advising them that the more they can the more they should have links back to the town website, use official town logos, official town terminology. At the same point we are also saying if you are using social media on a personal side, please don’t say this is official town capacity if you are replying to something or posting something personally,” Martin added.
Martin said that a policy was drafted, presented and approved by the Select Board a few years ago but nothing happened past that.
The committee decided they wanted to implement that policy but upon review, they realized it needed to be updated.
Martin said, “Upon looking at the document and seeing it, it really didn’t make a whole lot of sense and was more geared strictly towards Facebook instead all social media. It was outdated at this point as is any sort of document relating to technology that was written four, five years ago is today.”
Martin said the committee has gone around and collected data from other social media policies including major corporations and surrounding communities to draft a new policy.
Martin said, “I think we are in a much better spot to have a document that s more inclusive. It’s going to be a little bit longer but it’s going to include a lot more information. We tried to make it so it is clear for as people as possible.”
Martin said his goal was to have the town website updated and social media policy implemented by the end of the year.
He added he would like to have the social media policy finalized by the end of August, but the town website may take longer.
“My goal from the beginning of all of this has always been end of year. That timeline is definitely looking a little less likely especially because a lot of this work is going to be done by volunteers. A lot of us still work our other jobs so being able to also make updates and edits to the town website is difficult. We are still hopeful and many of us are dedicated to get this done.”