There are several separate elements of the project.

  1. The project team have produced a SiteWorks/WordPress theme which makes it easy for u3as to produce a website that follows the recommendations for use of colour and font set out in the brand guidelines.  The theme is developed under an open-source licence which makes it available to anyone to use or modify.

  2. The project team have developed several WordPress features that provide custom functionality called “plugins” to provide a way of managing u3a groups, venues, contacts and events.  The plugins are developed under an open-source licence which makes them available to anyone to use or modify.

  3. For u3as that currently have their website hosted on SiteBuilder, it provides a migration service which will transfer much of the content of a SiteBuilder website to WordPress.  However, further editing will be necessary following migration to tidy up the appearance of some pages and to take advantage of the opportunity for significantly improved presentation offered by SiteWorks.

  4. The project will offer a hosting service to all u3as (not just those on SiteBuilder) giving access to a SiteWorks/WordPress website.

  5. For u3as not migrating from SiteBuilder their site will still have the u3a theme and plugins pre-installed, but it won’t be pre-populated with data other than some fictitious example pages. We call this the ‘Starter Site’ option.

  6. The project will provide training materials that cover the use of the plugins developed to manage groups, venues, contacts and events to enable you to get up and running on SiteWorks.  There will also be a curated list of other sources for learning about using WordPress.

  7. The project team will provide mentoring for u3as moving to SiteWorks.