Expanded Mission

Webmaster Marshall Ketchum shares his thoughts on expanding the website to include Post-Carder Steuben.

The question has been raised about how we are planning to proceed with the Mission expansion to include Post-Carder Steuben. These kinds of decisions are up to the Board and I think that we are still looking at what is possible and how to proceed. I won’t try to answer these questions here but I can address myself to the website if it is decided to go in that direction.

First we would need to decide if we needed the Post-Carder pieces on a website. At least one member has expressed the opinion that we may not need these designs on a website. He said he just uses the Madigan book and he thinks that is sufficient.

If we decide that a website is necessary then we need to look at how to do it. I don’t believe that we would want to try and mix the Carder and Post-Carder designs on a single site. The numbering systems are different and much of the descriptive information is different for the two systems. What I have proposed to the Board is that we use the existing site only for Carder designs and that we use the website software that we have paid for and modify it however is necessary to accommodate the Post-Carder designs. This would result in a “new” website only for the Post-Carder designs. A new home page would have links to take you to either the existing site or to the new site. The estimated cost to do this would be about 1/3 of the cost to develop the existing site.

Assuming that we go down this road we would need drawings and photos to put on it. The drawings and photos exist at CMoG and the Rakow and we have permission to use them but they are all on paper. There would be several hundred hours work necessary to get these digitized for the new site. This would require a significant volunteer effort from members in and near Corning to accomplish. It would be my recommendation that we not spend money on a new site until we have materials to put on it. There are other complications if we decide to go in this direction but the above should provide the flavor of some of the problems we might find.

Epergne
Glass repairman Wayne Montano of Emmett, Idaho shares his pride in the process for his latest cut glass work.