Clergy Forum

Summary

Activity	Set up a private online discussion forum for use by clergy
Organisation	Society of Mary and Martha at Sheldon
Dates	November 2008 - November 2009

Description

The Society of Mary and Martha at Sheldon is an independent, ecumenical charity set up to support people in Christian ministry at times of stress, crisis, burnout or breakdown. Sheldon published a workbook "Affirmation & Accountability - practical suggestions for preventing clergy stress, sickness and early retirement" in 2002, and I discovered in 2008 that they wanted to set up an accompanying online forum to enable people in ministry to meet, discuss, share good practice, offer case histories, and do useful networking.

When I volunteered to investigate setting up the forum, my first step was to interview Sheldon to find out more about their requirements. First and foremost, they wanted the forum to be private. Potential users would be able to register, but would be identity checked before being allowed access. There needed to be different admin roles, such as user admin and content moderator, which could be undertaken remotely by approved volunteers.

I then investigated the feasibility of Drupal and Joomla! free content management systems to meet these and other requirements, choosing Drupal because it supports forums in its standard build and has a wide range of add-ons. Development was iterative; the pilot version caused further ideas to surface, and the eventual version that was launched was a worked-up version of the pilot. I collaborated with Sheldon on writing the copy; developing the terms of use and registration screens; and confidentiality agreements for users in admin roles. I also produced documentation for the user admin role.

The Sheldon Clergy Forum was launched at www.clergyforum.org.uk on 21 November 2008. In its first year, it attracted more than 300 users. Sheldon undertake the forum and user admin, but I have continued to provide support and have made some minor developments.

Technical information

I built the site using the Drupal CMS v6. The stylesheet is a customised version of Drupal's standard Garland style. I supplemented the standard download with the modules: autologout, for improved security; captcha, to prevent automated computer access; extlink, so that external links are highlighted and opened in new windows; fckeditor, a wysiwyg text editor; image, imageapi, imagebrowser and views, enabling uploading and enbedding of images; mass_contact, enabling mass contact of users by roles; subscription, enabling users to subscribe to daily digests of activity on the forum; taxonomy_access, enabling content to be classified and managed as public, private (logged-in users only), or admin (subset of logged-in users with admin privileges); and terms_of_use, to support the registration process. Content includes forums, blogs, polls and static content.

Also...

I worked in the kitchen garden at Sheldon for one morning a week during 2008-2010; and I continue to provide advice on alternative energy, their web presence and social media.