Database For Rural Village Halls - Worth It Or No?

[Andy Westcott 0]

I had a silly idea at work today.

I was thinking that it might be useful to some to be able to look up the vital statistics for some out of the way rural village halls you might be asked to perform at, if you'd never been there before.

 

I then thought - it would actually be very easy to do this in web page format. All we'd need is for anyone who visits such a village hall to prepare a review with any useful information including photos, send it to me and I could then incorporate it into a web resource for the benefit of anyone.

 

Note: This would be just village halls in rural areas, not pub funtion rooms or hotels.

 

Web space isn't an issue as I have loads to spare, and what is basically a smallish bit of text takes up next to no room so I can easily host it for the forseeable future.

 

I've quickly prepared a couple of example pages to illustrate what I had in mind - simple layout using basic HTML and CSS to ensure maximum browser compatibility. Simple but does the job.

 

Use the link below to look at the index page, which can eventually contain an index of halls on the database, and each entry there will link to a page detailing that particular hall. There is only one active link there at the moment, under the Cornwall subheading - click it to see an example of the page layout:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/andyspatch/halls/hallindex.htm

 

I'd be interested in your views as to whether it might be of any use to anyone. Let's hear it - good and bad.

Dont criticise the layout unless it's an important point - it's simple for a reason. smile icon

[UKHero 0]

Love the Idea and I would contribute but cant draw as good as you... :joe:

 

 

But yes very usefull and I am sure would be well recieved by the DJ community and we should all invest in this....

 

Nik

 

[EdBray 0]

Not sure about the lightscreens in the internal picture. Think a starcloth would look a little more classy.

[Andy Westcott 0]

Shut up you.

Do you have any idea how long it took me to draw that??

 

Anyhow, my artistic talents aside, if enough of you think it might be helpful, I'll do something about it.

 

More views, please.

[TonyB 0]

Looks good to me. It could be a good resource for people looking for a local hall to hire too - how much for an advert for my local area? :dan+ju:

[UKHero 0]

could also include things like has sound limiter lack of plugs nice staff etc... I love the idea...

 

 

Nik

 

[Andy Westcott 0]

All good so far then.

I've got a heading for sound limiters and power supply, but more 'features' headings needed, I expect.

 

Looking at the space I have available, I can list just over 1,000 halls with each having 3 images similar in size to my example. I recon it might take a while to fill that, but if I do, I can blag another 50Mb without too much trouble.

 

There was a mention of staff. Don't know how useful that is, as I usually only deal with some grumpy old caretaker - we'll see how it pans out.

 

If this idea goes ahead, I suppose a static link to the 'database' could be placed on here somewhere - I won't include any links to my personal stuff, it would be DJU only.

 

Also, If I ever get kicked off here for indecent exposure, or whatever, I can load all the necessary files onto a CD-ROM and send it to someone else to host - I have no intention of trying to retain any rights to what will hopefully be a joint project. smile icon

[Dukesy 0]

Good idea. :Thumbup:

 

You may wish to add / include such venue info about those with marquees in the grounds, vehicle access info, mobile phone signal strength, nearest fuel garage to venue.

I guess the more relevant info the better with our profession!

 

 

[High Fidelity 0]

Yep! :Thumbup: Good idea

 

The only thing I can think of to add is function room access.

[Andy Westcott 0]

Good points, Dukesy, but I must reiterate that this listing is (at the moment) only for village halls, especially those in rural areas, otherwise there could be far too much data to deal with.

The larger venues may well have info on the internet anyway.

 

Also, it's those pesky little halls hidden in such places as deepest Farringdon, Devon, where most doubt exists in the mind of the DJ; I've often done a reccenoitre of such places to find out where they are, but that still gives you no idea about the conditions inside.

 

This is still a fledgling idea, so it could still change depending on what people want.

 

I do like the ideas about phone signal strength and garage (24 hour?) availability - may be useful to know.

 

What I'll probably do is prepare a plain text questionaire for people to downoad which they can fill in with whatever info they can, then they can copy/paste the lot and e-mail it to me along with any useful pictures.

 

Actually, I invite anyone to start sending info as soon as they like, then once there are a few halls featured we can get a feel for how this is going to go. Important picture info: Send them to me in full size jpg format - don't mess with them. I'll do the necessary cropping and compression in preparation for the site. As for maps, if you have the time, go to Multimap.com and home in on your venue at as high a zoom as possible, 'save target as', putting a mark where the venue is, then send it to me - I'll go from there.

Be sure to let me know the FULL name of the venue and its address, along with the county so I can list it properly.

 

Best e-mail me on this address:

hotfusion at tiscali . co . uk

(Apologies for the anti-spam measure.)

Be sure to include "village hall data" in the subject line, so I can easily sort it from the rubbish.

I won't be confirming receipt, but you can check to see if your venue appears after a few days.

 

I'll go over this again another time. smile icon

 

[YourBigEvent 0]

Andy, I thought everbody knew you had to turn left at Crelay to get to Farringdon Village Hall :joe:

[Andy Westcott 0]

There is another way - up behind the airport, turn right by the wall, right at the t-junction then right again. tongue out icon

 

It's a dive though! Ever been there?

[RichardP 0]

Technically could this be done with a wiki? i.e. so any (trusted) user can keep the site updated?

 

Don't ask me how, just idly pontificating as ever smile icon

[YourBigEvent 0]

Only done gigs at Farringdon House (I think it's called that), both gigs were leaving parties for Eton School, three or four large marquees in the garden, both finished at about 6am too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I turned left at Crealey.

[Andy Westcott 0]

Ah, Farringdon House.

Outta my league. :nbow:

 

Farringdon Village Hall is more like an outside toilet......

 

Umm Sorry RichardP.

Yes, the wiki idea. I'm not sure how that would be done but it's a possible way forward if this thing grows too big for me to handle on my own. I can't operate that idea on my current webspace as I don't think they allow the necessary scripts to be run.

Idea for the future though. :Thumbup:

[YourBigEvent 0]

Andy, do it for 9 months, then either float or sell to Google.

[Andy Westcott 0]

Are you going to insist on 10% for that advice??

[YourBigEvent 0]

Of course not, standard rate is 12.5%

[Jason v G 0]

Could also include some info regarding times permitted to play.

Been in many situations where the client has been promised the hall "'till 12" and assumed that meant finish disco at 12 but then the caretaker turns up at 11.30 to stop the disco as 'till 12 means everybody out by 12.

In fact "you can have the party from 7.00 pm" means the caretaker turns up at 6.59 pm to let the DJ in.

 

[Andy Westcott 0]

Good idea - I've had this too.

So, people, if you have had this experience, put it in with your review and I'll add it to the details.

[Eskie 0]

Could also include some info regarding times permitted to play.

Been in many situations where the client has been promised the hall "'till 12" and assumed that meant finish disco at 12 but then the caretaker turns up at 11.30 to stop the disco as 'till 12 means everybody out by 12.

In fact "you can have the party from 7.00 pm" means the caretaker turns up at 6.59 pm to let the DJ in.

For the above type of information and also earlier where someone mentioned including info on friendliness of staff etc, I think you should include the date the info was submitted because staff, caretakers, situations change. What was accurate 2 years ago may be very different today. In 2005 it may have been a grumpy caretaker but he may have left a year later and the new guy is more helpful as an example.

On the friendliness of staff issue; this is also extremely changeable in many venues, especially if they hire a lot of casual staff, plus how friendly they are is usually inversely proportional to the crowd they're dealing with on the night. If the crowd are treating the staff like dirt and being rude to them (which we as DJs may not be aware of) you wouldn't expect the staff to be overly happy!

 

Great idea though, especially for things such as sound limiters, but again, dates should be included of when submitted, because although Farringdon village Hall or wherever may not have a limiter today, the DJ who submitted the report wouldn't know that the hall were planning to install one shortly after that event.

Edited January 4, 2007 by Eskie

[Steve_Mitchell 0]

I like the idea.

[Andy Westcott 0]

OK, suggestions taken on board. I've now put a "date submitted" line on the detail page - a necessary feature so we know when the info was last updated. Also, if anyone visits a hall and sees the info on it is 6 months out of date, or slightly in error, they can submit a correction or update if they wish. smile icon

 

I'm planning to keep a log of who submitted the info and when, actually hidden within the HTML for that particular venue so it won't be visible on the page, but is there should a question arise. This will just be your forum alias, not real name, and accessible only by 'those in the know'.

 

Anyone visiting the main index page (link and info in my signature) can now download a plain text questionaire file. Right click and 'save target as' to save it to a local directory. DON'T just click on it as it will not be saved on your computer.

 

Fill in anything you can be bothered to about the place you visited, then simply copy/paste the whole lot into an e-mail and send to me along with those lovely pictures you took. (Note my request concerning images.)

 

Keep the suggestions or corrections coming.

I'm hoping that as the evenings start to pull out we can begin getting some good shots of the dives we visit!

 

I notice not much reaction from the mods/admin on this project. How do you lot feel about it?

[Eskie 0]

I notice not much reaction from the mods/admin on this project. How do you lot feel about it?

I think a visit to Specsavers may be in order matey, the preceding two replies to your message were from moderators

It's not really realistic to expect every single mod to reply.

[TonyB 0]

Can you include car parking and if it is a trek from the car park to the hall or does that come under access?