We joined Class Creators as a free member a few months ago and just recently converted to a paid subscription. We just held our first planning meeting for the reunion two days ago and will be setting the date and locations shortly.

I would love to get some feedback about the site.

We had a large class (1111). Thus far we have had just over 25% register on our new site. The "What's New" section has been a big success as we are now averaging nearly 80 hits a day.

While we are pleased with the response we have gotten so far, we know there is more we can do.

Fire away, I won't take anything personally.

http://www.classcreator.com/Coral-Gables-Florida-Coral-Gables-Senior-1966/

The home page looks nice, just not very interesting.. You might put some pictures on it that would entice people to look further.. Pictures from your yearbook, last reunion, or from a past reunion party and say something like, "if you thought the last reunion was fun, just wait until you see what we are planning for the next one".

Or you could add a reunion cartoon or any cartoon relating to school days..

Our class site was set-up in 2009 to prepare for our 2010 reunion, so this is only the second reunion we've planned.

I continue to be amazed and impressed with the developments on ClassCreator.com. The Event Planner, while still under construction, will be amazing when it's completed. You can start registering people, even though the functions are not yet ready, such as getting a spreadsheet that you can use to check in classmates at each reunion event.

We used the previous Reunion Planner and it really helped streamline registrations and tracking who was coming to each event at the reunion.

I would recommend that you get a Facebook page,if you don't already have one to help advertise your page development and any reunion plans as they come together. It's one more way to advertise what you have and get other classmates to direct their friends to your webpage. Also utilize the "Email the class" to alert people to new developments.

Good luck!

Depending on how far out your reunion is, it's probably not too often to email the class once a month.

Yes! I agree about pictures (on home page and other locations). Pictures attract attention, especially photos of people (close ups of faces rather than head-to-toe shots). Brief captions are nice to pinpoint people, places or dates if that's important.

People like to remember and reminisce, some memories are specific to high school and activities there, but others are more about the era we grew up in (TV, music, etc)

Hi Art,

Great start on your website. One thing I would recommend is centering your website in the middle of the page rather than having it off in the left hand corner, personally I think it makes it look like someone put a little more thought into the website if it’s centered. And maybe your school color off to the sides. I really like the way Frankfort Senior High used theirs and added music, but would have centered the site.

Everyone likes different things on their Homepage. We thought adding pictures to the sides of the Home Page was a little too much, and distracted from the appearance. Especially because the Home Page is generally open to the public, and anyone who Googles your site can see it. There are plenty of places to add pictures once your logged in.

I would also recommend creating a page called “This and That”. It’s a place where any of the classmates can go to start a dialog about a certain subject, but let the Administrator approve or disapprove it before it’s made live for the other classmates to read. We had category called “Favorite Hamburger Drive-In’s” that got more action than any of the other topics. Here is a sample of one of the pictures that was added to the site. Click on the Dick's JPG file at the top of the page....

I would also activate your Birthday option that shows whose birthday it coining up next. That has also been very active.

I have been communicating with Class Creator for some time now to try and get them to add a LIKE button to the website similar to what Facebook has. There are times that classmates would like to know that you are reading their post and like it, but don’t have the time to respond to it. I’m being told that it isn't likely that it will be added.

Parl Guthrie

Thank you for all the suggestions on the very first day I started the thread. I have added a photo to the front page and will be working on some of your other suggestions. By popular request we are also in the midst of adding a new page titled "Do You Remember Miami When". A lot of our classmates have lists of places that are now gone, but played a major part in their lives growing up.

I am still open to new ideas so keep those suggestions coming.

Thanks

Looks great. Very colorful and everyone pictured looks so YOUNG. (My husband is a 66 grad).

Great job!

Hi there,
The point I am addressing may not be a major point for you. Looking at the website, it looks fine. I see that 261 of your alumni live in Florida.Although that is less than 25% of your class, I am assuming you are going to hold your reunion at or near your school (in Fla). But, since you have so many alumni, some are spread all over the country.
I'm only saying this because you asked for feedback. Do you think your classmates would be interested in having a reunion in a new, neutral place...perhaps centralized from where everyone lives? It might liven up the interest in the reunion. What do you think?
Barbara

Hi Barbara

I think I got your point the first time - LOL. It looks like you were having some tech problems. Actually we tried to do exactly that for a 45th. We got virtually no response; so we ended up having to cancel it. We had very large responses for our earlier reunions and weren't looking to match them for our 45th, but the response we got was miniscule. For our 50th we wanted to make this one as accessible for as many of our class as possible. That is why we went back to our traditional formula.

Hi Parl,

I would love to know how you centred your site. I can't figure it out and from my search of the forums, this has been an issue for quite some time.

Please enlighten me.

Art,

Under Admin Functions, click on Change Design. At the bottom of the box with design choices, click on "Center" under Page Alignment.

Thank you Scott.

Hi Art,

I was away from my computer for a while, we are remodeling our kitchen, dining and living room so I was pretty busy, but it looks like you did it with help from Scott. Now you can put your school colors on both sides of the webpage if you like. As I mentioned before Frankfort Senior High School above had a good idea, better than mine.

It looks like Barbara pushed the send button a few too many times. Computers and websites are sometimes very slow, so you have to wait a few seconds and let them think about what you want them to do.

Parl

Good luck on your website Art!

By the way, our Bothell High School Cougar football team was undefeated this year and won the state championship 4-A Division. I don’t know where Coral Gables is in relationship to Miami, but our team got to travel to Florida Atlantic University and play Miami Central, we didn't win but they had fun anyway!

Thank you Parl,

Coral Gables is in the south central part of Miami. Football was (and still is) very big in Florida, a little like Texas. Our high school won the mythical national championship in 1965 and we used to play certain games in the Orange Bowl where we would draw crowds in excess of 50,000 for a high school football game. When I tell people from other parts of the country about the attendance they usually think I am making it up, but it is true. Lately the football powers have been Miami Northwestern and Miami Central. Both have been ranked at the top of the USA Today polls at various times. Do you know what the attendance was in the game between your school and Miami Central?

It was nice reminiscing about our schools and our football teams.

Looks great for the short time you have been developing. We put up a custom header with a photo from our yearbook of our graduation and one beside it with our last reunion attendees. Just an idea. take a look by clicking on our icon at left.

We also decides to move our page to the left and post background pictures relating to holidays, historic photos etc. Just to keep new material in front of our members. The page width is 1000 pix so if you size a Background picture to 250 pix or 500 pix wide it will start in the right place.
.

Thank you Tommy,

You live in one of my favorite places...well at least I loved the TV show. Can I visit the CrashDown Cafe? I think I was addicted to the show except for the dark period when they had the duplicate heroes. You probably didn't even watch the show. LOL

Funny that I just centered the website and now you gave me an idea of why it might be better to have it on the left. I think I will leave it this way for awhile and then go back to the left in a couple of months and add photos.

So many good ideas. Thank you all.

Thank you, Art. For a while I thought I was really doing a bad job. But I guess classmates just don 't like to explore new places while celebrating an an old occasion. We have since cancelled ours also.
The next reunion will return to New York City, but I've already posted that it will undoubtedly cost more to put on.
Barbara
P.S. Yes, I clicked the send button too often while waiting for my computer to respond.

Parl Guthrie wrote:

Well shut my mouth! I no more than say that there won't be a LIKE button added to Class Creator and there it is. I was surprised to go on line today and see the new LIKE buttons. Way to go Class Creator. Now can you put them on everyone comment, and not just the post title?

Thanks Guys! Parl Guthrie

Here is another suggestion, but some may not agree with it. Personally, I think it’s very important to keep your yearbook picture in your profile. You remember your classmates by what they looked like 50 years ago, not what they look like today. We required all of our classmates to keep their yearbook picture in their profile, but they could use a Now Picture, or different Master photo for communicating if they wanted to. When someone deletes their yearbook photo, it kind of sends a message to everyone else that they don’t want to connect, but they don’t have a problem seeing what everyone else says.