Recreation Commission Unveils New Website

The Oakland Recreation Commission officially unveiled their new website on Friday.

"The old site was created in 2006 by dedicated and hard working volunteers, but by today's standards, although functional, was very cumbersome for the administrators," said Oakland Recreation Commission Chairman Mike Guadagnino. "The new site uses 2012 technology, making it user friendly, attractive and necessary in the ever changing world of the recreation parent."

The website was built using no taxpayer money, Guadagnino said, but was instead financed by the Sports Association of Oakland.

Oakland residents Caron and Charlie McCormick, owners of Cicero Designs, created the web site.

The main goal of the project was to provide a website where Oakland residents could easily find information about their sport, Caron said.  

"There are a large number of programs, and then within each program there are often a large number of leagues," she said. "This made navigation a primary goal, finding the information you need fast."

Multiple users can be assigned update each sport in the new design, so there were a number of issues to consider.

"We wanted to have a user friendly interface, while keeping security issues in mind," Caron said.

Caron also envisioned a use beyond the utilitarian.

"We're hoping the website becomes a space where each sport, each team, shares some memories, she said. "It is such a great organization, a great community of volunteers, and we wanted to create a platform where people could update about games, share pictures, and years from now people can go back and remember a certain season, read about an old game, remember teammates, remember coaches."

She added that she and her husband were still fine tuning the site in cooperation with the Recreation Commission.

In the future they are considering features such as: sports stats, calendars, schedules and possibly online registration.

"There is still an enormous amount of work to do," Caron said. "But I think we have a vision of how to accomplish things in a practical and efficient manner."

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