In the summer of the year 2000, Dick Brann volunteered to start up a website for the parish. The purpose of the site was to help us keep one another informed, and to tell visitors about our parish, inviting them to join us in worship. He brought the idea before the pastoral council who gave him its unanimous approval. With input from parishioners and now, most recently, with help from other volunteers, the site continues to be an informal information source for us all about our parish community.
At first, the website resided in the personal web page of one of the parishioners at Buggs.Net. In February, 2002, a domain name of our own was registered on the internet and donated to us. We are now st-peter-the-apostle.org. The hyphens (or minus signs) are important as part of the spelling of the domain name. The suffix ".ORG" is appropriate to identify us as a non-profit organization rather than a commercial internet site. With our own domain, we can define our own Email addresses, and have our own web page addresses (URLs) on the World Wide Web.
To paraphrase the late Walt Kelly's comic character, Pogo, "We have met the webmaster, and he is us!"
The webmaster is not a person, but an Email mailbox at our domain, st-peter-the-apostle.org, where mail arrives if people use any of the Email links on our web pages. Volunteers are needed to open this mail and handle it appropriately. This means YOU! What every volunteer is always hoping to see is mail from someone willing to share this task. It's quick and painless to volunteer, just click and type I'll help in the subject line. Feel free to elaborate in the message body. We'll contact you to give you all you need to know to become one of the people behind the link to webmaster.
The information highway is a two-way street. Vistors send Email or fill out forms, and we add content to these pages. Whatever appears on these pages may well prompt some suggestions. Suggestions evoke responses. From these, questions may arise. Replies to questions provide new information. New information inspires new suggestions and new questions. In all these interactions, people are meeting, communicating, and comm-union is what we should be all about.
In all that happens in this place without location that we call a website, may it serve to bring us all together wherever we each may find ourselves.