Advice needed about setting up site

Good morning Janne,

It sounds like you want to do everything at once which doesn't sound like a good idea.

Why don't you just start with a static site with info about the organisation, contact info, address, how to get there, some photos and an optin form for people who want to be mailed about what events are coming up.

When that's running smoothly then plan and implement your next phase but in a test environment in order not to disturb the public site. When it's ready then go public with it. Then the next phase.

Then step for step you'll get there.

Good luck,

Mike

Good advice for a beginner there, Mike. Learning is a step-by-step process and works best when the student doesn't snack ahead and get overwhelmed or confused. Yes, it is good to know greater things already lie ahead, but understanding them well enough to apply them with a full-throated passion requires solid groundwork.
Now, Janne, putting video into a static web site is easy as pie when you get to it. The easiest way is to use a digital camera that offers a 'movie" option. Take a movie, save it as a file to your web site, then use a "click here" link to let your little surfers bring up the file on their computer. See a sample on You are in the movies now View the source code of the page if you need to see how easy it is to rope it in.

It is a temptation to set the page up so that the movie launches automatically. Having been the angry victim of such ploys far too often I suggest you first sell the little surfer on the idea of watching your movie. Then let the surfer click on the link.

For the items you mentioned, you might be able to use ready-made services that you can plug-in on your website, or point visitors to from your main homepage. For example, integration with Google Apps for the calendar and other free notification services. Another good place for free web services would be Bravenet.com, and you can easily put all of those individual items (calendar, album, sign up forms, etc) on your own website.

You mentioned that you had purchased a few things. My suggestion is that you keep careful track of what you want to do, and plan for those costs. Otherwise it is too easy for the expenses to grow out of control. Let me see what items you have going so far:

At this point, if you plugin free web services from your own hosting provider or a third party, the only cost I see at this point would be the purchase of your domain name, and monthly web hosting. You can use discount coupons for Godaddy or similar places to get your domain for less than $7.00 per year. The monthly fee for web hosting is already a given if you've picked HostMonster, but there are free web hosts out there (some do not force you to display ads). I just checked HostMonster and it looks like the hosting package includes the domain name, and 12 months costs $107.40 due at signup.

Okay, the A4Desk single license is on sale for $39.95, but if you decide to get the .fla source files to edit and customize it will be $65. I am not 100% familiar with A4Desk, but if you want to make changes later to the Flash content such as video and text, my experience has been that you need the source files.

Okay, this sounds like a Clickbank product that runs about $97 with lots of videos and PDF files to study. What does that bring our subtotal to at this point? Estimated at $269.40 before we've really started to do anything. I would put a temporary hold on new purchases and see how far you can make your existing spent dollars stretch to accomplish your future goals. Consider affiliate programs, free written articles, public domain pictures and videos, and other cost saving efforts.