You are visitor
since May 15, 2005
at About Bruderheim
Problems affecting the website of the Town of Bruderheim
Ideas on what to do to attract more people that wish to live in Bruderheim
By Walter Schneider
Identification of problems affecting the website operated by the Town of Bruderheim
Details of issues and necessary edits
This page contains excerpts from a somewhat one-sided exchange of correspondence with the Town Administration,
regarding necessary edits to the website operated by the Town of Bruderheim.
The landfill is on Highway 45 east of the St. Michael sign. Phone # 1-780-896-3808. The hours of operation are: ....
That answer is unacceptably ambiguous:
You should identify which St. Michael sign you are referring to. There are two of them on Highway 45, and St. Michael is
south of one of them. It would be a good idea to give people an idea how far away from town the St. Michael sign is located that you have in mind. I could tell you, but you should know, right? So, tell people what you know, or didn't you tell people how far away the dump is because you don't know?
The St. Michael dump is not on Highway 45, it is on the St. Michael Road when you drive east from Highway 45 for x-number of miles. I know how many miles that is, and so should you, but whether you know or not, you should identify how far and into which direction one has to drive to get to the St. Michael dump. After all, Halifax, too, is east of Highway 45. How far east of the St. Michael sign is the dump? That should be in your answer to the FAQ.
The last concern I have is that the uninitiated have no clue into which direction they must drive from town to get to the St. Michael dump. I know for a fact that there is a good number of people in Bruderheim that have never been to the dump, they don't know how to get there, and they don't know where St. Michael is in relation to town. Why don't you tell them, for starters, "Follow Highway 45 east out of town for x-number miles to the first St. Michael sign, then drive east towards St. Michael for x-number of miles." Believe me, that will be a lot better for many people.
I see that the suggestions I sent to you Tuesday, May 17, 2005, have not yet been incorporated into the FAQ page. Why is that? Do you need town council's permission before you can make changes to grammar or structure of sentences in your texts at bruderheim.ca?
While I was waiting for an appropriate response from you in relation to my previous suggestions for your FAQ page I produced a few web pages that reflect concerns by Bruderheim residents. Those web pages should be of considerable interest to the town office staff and to the town council. You will most likely wish to have a look at those web pages, accessible at the following address:
http://fathersforlife.org/Bruderheim.html>]
I don't have the time to look up the phone numbers of all parties that have a primary interest in those web pages and can't find the time to call them, and your page at <http://www.bruderheim.ca/towncouncil.htm>, provides no contact information for members of the town council. Therefore, this is the only notification of the fact that those web pages have been launched that you will receive, other than that some resident may begin to call one or the other interested party in your apparently closed shop.
If you wish to have the cooperation of Bruderheim residents, it will be a very good idea to make sure you work with them, not against them — and don't ignore them!
By the way, your web page at <http://www.bruderheim.ca/towncouncil.htm> contains false and misleading information. Jack Lambert is not the town council (he is one member of the town council), we do not have natural areas or a golf course in town, and Elk Island Park most certainly isn't ours, but where in that page can I find the information on the town council that one expects to find there?
Sincerely,
Walter Schneider
I should have added that there is a landfill location near St. Michael, but
it is not owned by the Town of Bruderheim. It is the regional landfill
site of the County of Lamont.
Subject:
"we office the peace & quite of country living" Hmm...
Date:
Mon, 23 May 2005 08:10:25 -0600
From:
Walter H. Schneider <w.schneider@shaw.ca>
To:
info@bruderheim.ca
To whom at the Town Office this may be of concern,
I should have done that sooner, but even more, so should you have.
One paragraph reads:
"Located just east of the City of Fort Saskatchewan with key sectors that include oil & gas, petro chemical, agriculture and a number of broad based services, we office the peace & quite of country living close to big city amenities."
I strongly suggest that you change that paragraph as soon as possible to read:
"Located just east of the City of Fort Saskatchewan with key industry sectors that include oil & gas, petro-chemical, agriculture and a number of broad-based services, we offer the peace and quiet of country living close to big city amenities. "
About "the tranquility and beauty of our Natural areas" that are mentioned in Jack Lambert's welcoming message, I imagine that refers to what people commonly call "The Bruderheim Sandhills". Those comprise the only officially natural area in the neighbourhood. If you have never been there, you should visit them. You will then soon find that the tranquility and beauty touted by Jack Lambert is anything but that.
The Bruderheim Sandhills are an extremely sensitive environment comprised of sparsely grown-over sand dunes and have been extensively damaged by off-road vehicles, whose noise, especially on weekends, makes the Sandhills anything but tranquil. The extensive damage caused by off-road vehicles to that area and the devastation caused by the frequent man-made bush fires that further damaged the area so extensively will quite likely be the subject of my next photo essay to be displayed at the website of Fathers for Life.
Other than that, do you have any intentions to replace the welcoming message by Jack Lambert on that page with pertinent information on the town council that one expects to find there? It would be better to move the welcoming message by Jack Lambert to the home page at <http://www.bruderheim.ca>.
Sincerely,
Walter Schneider
Subject:
Re: http://www.bruderheim.ca/meetingminutes.htm
Date:
Mon, 30 May 2005 15:29:27 -0600 (MDT)
From:
Town Administration
To:
Walter Schneider
References:
<428A40B7.7020408@fathersforlife.org>
Thank you for your interest in the Town of Bruderheim website. please be advised that the minutes will be updated as soon as possible I have been having some problems with some of the update items. Please also be advised that our website is still under construction and we ask for you patients.
Thank you again for visiting our website.
Aside from the error in capitalization at the beginning of the second sentence in the first paragraph and the missing period between "possible" and "I"
(I still don't know who the "I" is. There are more than one employees
at the town office.), it would be anyone's guess as to who sent that last message. At any rate, it is nice to finally have a response, even though I cannot comply with the request expressed in the third sentence of the first paragraph in that message. As I am not a medical doctor, I cannot provide the patients asked for, but I have more than enough patience.
Besides, with responses taking so long in coming (there was only that one response as of now), I can take more than enough time to reflect on and identify the errors contained in the website operated by the Town of Bruderheim.
I look forward to seeing the corrections of the errors in the FAQ page and other pages at the website operated by the Town of Bruderheim. Unfortunately, although the corrections identified so far would at the most not require more than a couple of hours of work, not a single one of those corrections identified during the last few weeks has been made so far.
(That was still true as of 2006 10 29)
It would be great to see someone implement a means of quality control for the information posted to the Town's website. However, if it is left up to him, the position expressed by the Chief Administration Officer, Kelly Rudyk, in a one-on-one discussion after the Town-Council meeting June 1st, 2005, leaves no doubt in my mind that the hoped-for quality control is the last thing to come out of his office. More about that later.
