In-site-ful

UR Pride’s online presence will be getting a facelift

Kim Elaschuk
News Editor

It’s located upstairs in the Riddell Centre. But if people don’t have time to stop in for a chat, UR Pride is updating their website for the new year.

Dan Shier is responsible for getting that site up and running for University of Regina Students.

 “We’ve come a long way with our branding and we want the website to fall into the consistency that we’ve achieved,” said Shier. “We also wish to bring a vast improvement in the functionality of the website.” 

The new website will be an improvement on the previous which, Shier explained, wasn’t very practical. “Our current website is very dependent on me working on it. If I were to leave the centre with this website, they’d have to find a new computer-savvy person to replace me, learn my coding, and all of that is just unnecessary work and a waste of time.”

The website has become an invaluable tool for the club since it was launched when the group was still known as GBLUR in late 2008 and early 2009. UR Pride uses the website to collect donations, organize volunteers, collect memberships, and inform people of news and events. With the future upgrades, UR Pride hopes to make learning about the group and its events easier.

The website will, of course, still represent UR Pride and its members. The website was made to feel like a place students could expect open minds, while keeping the group’s values at the heart of it. Those who peruse the website can look forward to having all the resources they had before, with general improvements all around. For instance, the website will feature an easier way for visitors to post comments for the group.

In fact, Shier explained that the whole site will be becoming more user-friendly. “Students can expect a cleaner, more organized website that we hope will be far more useful with fresh new content posted more frequently to keep our users engaged.”

While there is a temporary site available, the new site is still being perfected. Until it is launched, students looking for information about UR Pride or to wishes to contact the group can log on to their current site, urpride.ca, or pay them a visit in room 225 in the Riddell Centre.

Looking towards the future, UR Pride has big hopes for this new site. Shier can foresee a time when the site could become a source of pride for the group, and an important tool for those looking for information on sexual diversity throughout the rest of the province.

“I’m hoping that with the changes set to be put in place, the website will become an even better tool for all people in the community and that some day it can be seen as one of the better sites out there for queer content.”