The Plight of being a GM

Being the GM of so many things has advantages and drawbacks. While the advantages obviously out-weigh the drawbacks, it doesn't necessarily make life easier. But more often than not, the payoff is worth it.

I've been asked, on more than one occasion, to give the Blackburn Mens' Fastball Association's web-page a make-over. The current site is technically sound (Ie the programming is solid, there's auto-updating for scores and standings and team rosters) but the site's overall look is far from what it could be, to be generous.

They initially nominated me for the role of League webmaster a couple years ago, but I rejected it. Knowing only HTML and photoshop (for images, etc) I told them I didn't have the skill set to maintain SQL and ASP programming, which the previous (and current) web master used for the auto-updating. they enquired again the following year, but with a kid along the way I politely said no thanks again, although there was this itch, this part of me that knew it wouldn't take much to give the site a major make-over.

This year, after once again letting them know I didn't really have the time to commit to it, I said no thanks, so the league attempted to hire an outside guy to do it. When that fell through (not sure how), the league decided to form a committee to work with the old web master to come up with something new.

After hearing this, my itch increased, knowing that there was a committee being formed for something I was fairly certain I could do on my own, as long as the old web master could chip in for all the technical programming. Especially considering they asked me to redesign the League's logo, and I was able to do that successfully. Well, 1 e-mail later, and I was the new web committee, lol.

Rebuilding the site hasn't been too time consuming. I've been working on it while the playoffs play in the background, and during breaks at work. The old web master has been quite accommodating, and it shouldn't be too long before we launch. So far, I'm quite pleased with what we've done.

But it has, like GMing anything, been a tricky balancing act. I try not to let me hobbies interfere too much with home life. Family always comes first, so I'm trying to make fastball my only scheduled extra-curricular activity in the summer. Twice a week is a lot when working fulltime, and there's 2 sets of parents to visit on the weekends! So fitting in rebuilding a website was a tricky task, but one that's worked out well so far. Hopefully the old web master will want to be the one to maintain it.

M@

PS, I will post a link to the site once it's launched