As editor of atlanta-midtown.com, I'd like to assist the MLPA with your web site improvements.

atlanta-midtown.com provides free web sites to important neighborhood groups, including Inman Middle School, CINS, and John Howell Park. You can see these at:

http://www.inmanms.org http://www.cinsatlanta.org http://www.johnhowellpark.org

We are developing neighborhood sections for each of the midtown neighborhoods, with our first 2 (Virginia-Highland and Morningside) being at various stages of completion. You can see these at:

http://www.atlanta-midtown.com/neighborhoods/virginia-highland/ http://www.atlanta-midtown.com/neighborhoods/morningside/

I would like to work with you to either provide your entire site, or to work in collaboration with you to create the static informational sections that will be of wide interest to Morningside and other midtown residents.

I do not charge nonprofit groups for web design, maintenance or hosting. Of course, if you want a sophisticated, membership-type database-driven site that allows multiple authors, I wouldn't be able to provide that for free since it would require purchasing software. So, although it seems counter-intuitive, if you want me to do all the work, I won't charge you a dime but if you want to do some of the work yourself, there would be a charge depending on what you want.

I do allow sponsors to place ads on nonprofit pages that I create in order to offset the cost of providing the service, however I only permit local, family-friendly businesses to sponsor pages on atlanta-midtown.com, and I have strict rules regarding the kind of advertisements (no horrible pop-ups, no animation, etc.). Regardless of whether a page is sponsored or not, there is no cost to the nonprofit for its creation, maintenance or hosting.

At any time, any one should feel free to send me information that they believe would be of interest to Morningside residents (or other intown residents). If I agree with you, I will add the information to the atlanta-midtown.com site. You should also send news items relating to the neighborhood, which will allow me to keep the Morningside news section on atlanta-midtown.com up-to-date.

Anyone who would like additional information can respond to this posting or e-mail me directly at editor@atlanta-midtown.com.

-- Lisa Crowder (editor@atlanta-midtown.com), November 20, 2001

Answers

my knee jerk response to this suggestion is that i don't want to see ads on the MLPA website unless they have been approved by the board.

-- Alan Perry (mlpamember@aol.com), November 23, 2001.

One problem with atlanta-midtown site is we have little control over the content. Lisa decides the ads and also what material from residents gets included. I'd rather see those decisions made within the neighborhood.

On the cost side of things, it sure is appealing. Wonder what her charge would be to add the membership type data base to her free service? Dianne Olansky

-- Dianne Olansky (olansky@mindspring.com), November 27, 2001.

I agree with Alan re: ads. We seem to have a growing list of revenue raising avenues, and my feeling is that the Board needs to review this. To at least have an overall sense of all the ways that MLPA asks local businesses/people for money. To set some general guidelines that the various committees work from. So we don't pass the hat one too many times to generous sponsors. e.g. Don't approach the realtors and home remodeling outfits for Celeb of Summer and don't AGGRESSIVELY pursue ads from them if MLPA continues to have an annual Tour of Homes - as a relatively predictable list of local firms put up most of the cash year after year.

-- Norman McKay (hawkeyenorm@mindspring.com), November 27, 2001.