Primary purposes | Design & structure | Editorial policy | Designing compatible pages | Email addresses

About this Website

Please send corrections, reports of technical faults, minor additions, links to Methodist sites, photos and calendar information to John Summerwill, the webmaster who designed the site: (tel: 0113 269 7895).

News items and accompanying pictures should be sent to John Summerwill (tel: 0113 269 7895).

Other queries or suggestions regarding policy, inclusions/exclusions and links to non-Methodist sites should be addressed to the District Office (tel: 0113 278 5546)

Primary Purposes

• To publicise the work and faith of the church in all its variety and at all levels (local church, circuit and district) in order to encourage, inspire, educate and evangelise.
• To inform enquirers about the Methodist Church in the Leeds District, about Methodism and about Christianity.
• To assist communication within the District, with ecumenical partners, with people from other districts, with journalists, etc, by providing contact details for key persons in each area of district life.
• To stimulate the development of the work of the District by publicising details of planned events, courses, projects, quiet days, special services, etc..
• To assist contact with every church and circuit in the District by providing basic information about each church, including its address, principal service times, minister and map location, with links to churches' and circuits' own websites wherever they exist.
• To provide a gateway to other relevant sources of information and the wider interests of the Church.

Design & Structure of the Website

The main pages are supplemented by additional pages linked to them, according to the amount of information to be included. Pages linked in can be categorised as:

• internal pages, which carry a distinctive District banner and identifying footer; all such pages are stored in the same directory of the District's domain and are under the District's editorial control as described below;
• external pages created and maintained by others (e.g. a church's own website), which operate independently.

Editorial Policy for 'internal pages'

Content

District team leaders and their teams have oversight of the content of their pages, which should be reviewed at least annually. The Synod Planning Group should update the District & Synod page as necessary. All other material for inclusion should be passed through the District Office for editing/approval by the Chair, who will be accountable to the District Policy Committee. Requests for links to other websites must be referred to the Chair or the Synod Secretary.

Contact Details

The website includes addresses of churches and church/circuit/district offices, including phone and fax numbers and email addresses.

Addresses will not be included for individuals unless they specifically request inclusion.

Ministers', deacons' and lay workers' names, phone numbers and email addresses will be included without their permission being requested.

The names, phone numbers and email addresses of others will be included subject to their approval. Permission for such details to be included on the website will be sought when it is requested for the Synod Handbook.

To safeguard email addresses from spammers, two strategies are in use: a redirection which should prevent most email harvesters from viewing the pages where email addresses are listed, and some coding changes which make it difficult for harvesters to recognise them as email addresses. If you do not wish to use your normal email address, you can have an email address on the leedsmethodist domain instead  (see below).
 

Photographs

The permission of those photographed should be obtained. Normally this can be done by telling people at the time a picture is taken that it will be used on the website.

In the case of photographs of children, parental approval will be needed for their inclusion, and children will not be identified by name.
 

Accessibility

As far as possible, pages will be designed to meet Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) standards, which are designed to take account of the needs of people with various sorts of visual impairments and those who depend on audio systems. The standards are highly exacting and there is some conflict of interest in that techniques that may benefit some users may disadvantage others, particularly people using older equipment and software. Some compromises will therefore be necessary in the short term. Initially the website will be suitable for the vast majority of users as it has:

• scaleable rather than fixed-size text,
• high contrast between text and backgrounds,
• links indicated by tags as well as by colour, and highlighted by underlining as well as by colour change
• text alternatives for all images
• compatability with all main browsers from 4th generation upwards (IE, Netscape, Firefox, Opera).

Designing Compatible Pages

If you are responsible for publicising a particular aspect of the District's work, or are webmaster of a church, circuit or organisation's website, and would like to give your linked pages a similar design to those on this website, you may find the following downloadable style models helpful:

 Model_Menu.htm   (editable sample page with header, footer, style examples and side menu)

 Model_No_Menu.htm  (same but without the side menu)

 district_style.css  (style sheet, defining the main styles employed)

Email Addresses on this Domain

People named on this website may apply for an email address in the format your_unique_bit@leedsmethodist.org.uk which will then be used on the website.  There are two ways in which we can set up this address:

1. as a forwarding address: Mail is diverted to your private email address, which is not revealed on the website. This does not require any change in your email system. It works only for incoming mail. You will need to use your private email address to reply to correspondents;
   OR
2. as a normal two-way email address: You need to supply a password and will be given an ID. Mail can be accessed and dealt with through a website from anywhere in the world, or you can set up an account on your email browser to receive and send mail using the same mailbox as your private email address, or another, as you see fit. The installation will be your responsibility.

To apply, send an email to webmaster@leedsmethodist.org.uk with the following information:

• Your name
• Postcode (for identification check)
• Current email address
• New email address @leedsmethodist.org.uk   
  (e.g. gipsy.smith  or  team_secretary  or gbh — i.e. name or role or initials or whatever)
• Whether you want forwarding or a two-way address
• Password if you want a two-way address, min 4 max 8 characters; case sensitive.

If you do not have an existing email address, please ring the webmaster (0113 269 7895) to make your application.

Please note that the request will be dealt with personally by the webmaster, so the response may take a day or two.

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