I have recently started helping to maintain The Fremantle Society’s website (fremantlesociety.org.au), and it’s reminding me of why I work in IT and of how much I’ve been missing being part of any greater endevour (with people, I mean, and working together for some purpose — as I once did with the Coop, for instance). There are fantastic, passionate, intelligent people involved, and more than that — there is something to believe in! I don’t mean that in any too-deep way: just that it feels like the Society is not only an incorporated-body-that-has-meetings, but rather something of a focal point for people who see and care about a certain historical/communal aspect of Fremantle.
I have many ideas about the website redevelopment. At the moment it’s technical stuff: deciding between Drupal, WordPress, MediaWiki, or something else, and the philosophical differences that software engenders (in the means of interaction and collaboration). I’ll post more, soon, about what we’ve been thinking about that. (I’m liking the idea of the division down the lines of there being The Fremantle Society, Inc. on the one hand, and the society of Fremantle on the other. The distinction between the incorporated body, and the actual built and social environment of the City that is the former’s raison d’être.)