Each year it is a greater challenge to review sites and pick those that are outstanding. To minimize the task of reviewing sites, clubs are asked to submit their sites for the competition. In addition, each club was required to provide a reviewer who would evaluate web sites of 10 other clubs. Results of this review were used to select 5 large club web sites and 5 small club web sites for final judging. We received lots of feedfack from reviewers about how much they enjoyed looking at other clubs web sites and how it had given them new ideas for their own clubs.

Judging was done in each of two categories, small clubs with 200 members or less, and large clubs with over 200 members. Three Top Sites were picked in each division. Finally, one site was picked from among these six as the Best Site for 2003.

Eligibility

To be eligible sites had to be current RRCA clubs with web sites listed on Jan 1, 2003. They also were required to have a link to the RRCA from their home page.

Judging Criteria

The judging criteria are listed below.

• First Impression
• Layout/Graphic Design
• Ease of Navigation
• Use of Technology
• Depth of Content
• Up to Date
• Uniqueness/Personality
• Contribution to RRCA

Here are this year's winners, (listed alphabetically in each division):

2003 Large Club Top Sites

• Badgerland Striders, WI
• Birmingham Track Club, AL
• Mid Pacific Road Runners Club, HI

2003 Small Club Top Sites

• Conway Running Club, AR
• Lake Monroe Roadkillers, FL
• Virginia Happy Trails Running Club, VA

2003 Best Site

• Badgerland Striders, WI

Webmaster Jerry Cameron has been invited to the RRCA convention to receive his award.

Comments

First my thanks to all the club reviewers for their help looking at the pages. Without the help of these reviewers, it would not be possible to reduce the judging job down to something manageable.

Competition was extremely close this year. Besides the obvious content and cosmetics these are some of the things that separated web sites in this years final judging:

1) Cross browser compatibility. Will the site work with different browsers?

2) Use of technology. More use of scripting, styles, databases and search engines.

3) Navigation. Consistency. How many clicks does it take to find something? It is easy to get from down in the website to something else?

4) RRCA support. Besides the link to the RRCA on the home page is there other support for the RRCA or use of their news feed or calendar database.

If you want to improve your site, look at some of these details and take the time to surf the winning sites. You can get a lot of ideas for improving your own web site and your club in general.

Warren Finke webmaster