Not all of the following comments and suggestions may apply to your specific situation. This document was designed to address as many of the broad issues as possible when a Lion is considering designing a Lions Club Web Page. The URL and email links listed below will, in most cases, be "hot" links allowing you to visit the sites as you read through material.

If you currently have an account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) there is a good chance the ISP makes available server space for a web page or pages either for free or for a nominal charge. My ISP provides 1MB of space free and I "purchased" an additional 5MB. If I was not so heavily involved with the hosting of a number of web sites the 1MB would be more than adequate. In the event your ISP does not provide space, the cost is prohibitive if it does or you are using an email only service then let me give you some options.

First, you can contact the commercial servers in your area and ask them to donate space, explaining about Lionism and the good works a Club does in the community. Many Clubs have successfully done this and usually offer promotional space at the bottom of the primary page.

Another route is to go to Geocities - http://www.geocities.com - and get free space. Again many Lions Clubs are located there and the only requirement is to post the Geocities logo and slogan at the bottom of your page. There are a number of other organizations that provide this kind of service but Geocities appears to lead the pack. If, for some reason, Geocities does not appeal to you then contact me about additional organizations.

The other ways to get server space involve money and signing up with a commercial server. You can get the fee underwritten - often a local business is willing to do so for (you guessed it) the public relations of having the donation attributed on the page. The final way is for the Club to pay for server space outright.

OK, once you have the space, you need to design the Club page. I won't make suggestions on that at this point because I don't know what experience you've had. Certainly I'm happy to answer any questions about that you might have as will any of the other LionNet Nodemasters.

Things to include might be some details about the Club - when and where you meet, officers, projects and maybe something about your city and region. A good example is the Uniontown Lions Club (Ohio) - http://www.akroncanton.com/lions/

Then, too, you should have links to your District if it has a page, and to:

Lions Clubs International - http://www.lionsclubs.org
LionNet International - http://www.lionnet.com
LionNet USA - http://www.lionnet.com/USA
LionNet TEXAS - http://www.flash.net/~pickens2/lionnet.html.

You would provide similar information in your District page but should also include info on District Calendar of Events, links to other Clubs in you District, email addresses for Cabinet Officers on line, etc.

The Nodemaster of LionNet Finland has prepared two useful pages -

Prototype Club Page - http://www.funet.fi/pub/org/charity/lions/prototype.html
How-To Page - http://www.funet.fi/pub/org/charity/lions/Club_Page_Set_Up.html

Backgrounds and Lions logos are available at

LN Finland FTP Page - http://www.funet.fi/pub/org/charity/lions/ftppage.html and from
LionNet - http://www.lionnet.com/image_archive.html

You can also visit the Fairfield CyberLions Club of Australia site where you will find plenty of good backgrounds and logos at this site as well as web page building assistance.

Making a Lions Web Page - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/2959/webpage.html.

If you aren't into working directly with HTML coding (I'm not either) then you might investigate some of the many software products on the market for designing web pages - MS Front Page and My Internet Business Page are two but there are many others - it is a constantly growing list.

To see what other Clubs and Districts have developed let me suggest you visit some of the sites linked on:

LionNet International - http://www.lionnet.com
LionNet TEXAS - http://www.flash.net/~pickens2/lionnet.html.

And, of course, visit my Club & District 2-X1 sites:

Carrollton Evening Lions Club - http://www.flash.net/~pickens2/celc.html
District 2-X1 - http://www.flash.net/~pickens2/2x1.html & http://www.flash.net/~pickens2/dist2x1.html

We are all volunteers and are happy to include advice and even fundamental page design to help, as you so aptly put it, get the message out. So, no costs unless you end up buying server space and or web page design software. I'll look forward to hearing from you. I'm also copying this to our nodemasters list - we all like to encourage new members of the family.

A final note - you may have Lions in your Club or serving at the District level who don't have or don't want access to the Internet but do have a PC and want email. There are several "free" email services but I am familiar with Juno - http://www.juno.com. I would recommend you get as many of your Lions on line as you can. It will help Lions communicate
within the Club, the District and with Lions worldwide.

If you have any additional questions please email me at mailto:pickens2@flash.net.