Hello Everybody
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 12:56 am
Thought I would just say Hi to you all, and say a bit about me, why I've installed Zuluru, and what I hope I'll be doing with it.
About nine and a half months ago (I remember because it was around the time my second son was born), I was trying to get a Touch Rugby Team together for my oldest son. About half the team from the previous year had moved up to another grade, and I got preoccupied with other things. The league is arranged around people forming their own teams and then joining the league as a team - rather than most kids sports, where you sign up and the kids get put in a team and it is all done for you. It seems to be mostly a social league for adults and works for them, but for parents wanting to get their under sevens into a team, it is not so easy. I thought there must be a better way of doing it.
I searched the net, and did not find anything open source that came close. I don't recall finding anything that worth installing and trying out. The online for a fee services did not appear to cater for children either - where parental consent and contact details are needed, and so forth.
So I threw together a Drupal site where parents could register their kids, form teams, print out registration forms and so on - pretty basic to do with Drupal. We formed a couple of new teams that joined the league a couple of weeks late, and found teams for several other players. All in all about thirty kids got to play who probably wouldn't have.
I made a couple of poor decisions with my site, and after the season got going, I kind of left it. The season ended recently, and I was thinking of starting again from scratch and spending a bit more time planning, but found Zuluru.
I have installed it and am having a look around. It seems to tick the important boxes, but there are some things I am still not clear about. We have schools which organize school teams and register them (Franchises?) and other schools that don't, and teams that are made up from Rugby Union and League clubs that play in the winter, there have to be at least three girls on the field at all times but the total number playing is more than six by agreement before the game. So I will have to ask more specific questions at a later time.
I'll be showing Zuluru to the people who organise the league in a few days time to see what they think. The problem is that they just take the completed team registrations and make up the draw. All the things that make it difficult for parents don't concern them. I'll have to look into it to see how Zuluru can make their life easier.
If we do use it, I'm keen to help out with the software. I did used to develop in PHP a long time ago - before sites got this complicated, before frameworks and PHP bug trackers. I have been a Linux user for ages, and a KDE user since the mascot was Kandalf. I currently use Kubuntu, Mint, Zentyal, Mythbuntu - Ubuntu based distro's for KDE desktop, Mate desktop, office server, and recording telly programs - around the house. I like Drupal, Zurmo, MythTV, Owncloud, Elgg and a few other server based PHP applications. An Elgg-Zuluru bridge would be pretty cool ...
Well, that is about it for now. With luck, I'll be asking dumb questions about themeing and adding rules for various sports in the near future.
Cheers,
Don
About nine and a half months ago (I remember because it was around the time my second son was born), I was trying to get a Touch Rugby Team together for my oldest son. About half the team from the previous year had moved up to another grade, and I got preoccupied with other things. The league is arranged around people forming their own teams and then joining the league as a team - rather than most kids sports, where you sign up and the kids get put in a team and it is all done for you. It seems to be mostly a social league for adults and works for them, but for parents wanting to get their under sevens into a team, it is not so easy. I thought there must be a better way of doing it.
I searched the net, and did not find anything open source that came close. I don't recall finding anything that worth installing and trying out. The online for a fee services did not appear to cater for children either - where parental consent and contact details are needed, and so forth.
So I threw together a Drupal site where parents could register their kids, form teams, print out registration forms and so on - pretty basic to do with Drupal. We formed a couple of new teams that joined the league a couple of weeks late, and found teams for several other players. All in all about thirty kids got to play who probably wouldn't have.
I made a couple of poor decisions with my site, and after the season got going, I kind of left it. The season ended recently, and I was thinking of starting again from scratch and spending a bit more time planning, but found Zuluru.
I have installed it and am having a look around. It seems to tick the important boxes, but there are some things I am still not clear about. We have schools which organize school teams and register them (Franchises?) and other schools that don't, and teams that are made up from Rugby Union and League clubs that play in the winter, there have to be at least three girls on the field at all times but the total number playing is more than six by agreement before the game. So I will have to ask more specific questions at a later time.
I'll be showing Zuluru to the people who organise the league in a few days time to see what they think. The problem is that they just take the completed team registrations and make up the draw. All the things that make it difficult for parents don't concern them. I'll have to look into it to see how Zuluru can make their life easier.
If we do use it, I'm keen to help out with the software. I did used to develop in PHP a long time ago - before sites got this complicated, before frameworks and PHP bug trackers. I have been a Linux user for ages, and a KDE user since the mascot was Kandalf. I currently use Kubuntu, Mint, Zentyal, Mythbuntu - Ubuntu based distro's for KDE desktop, Mate desktop, office server, and recording telly programs - around the house. I like Drupal, Zurmo, MythTV, Owncloud, Elgg and a few other server based PHP applications. An Elgg-Zuluru bridge would be pretty cool ...
Well, that is about it for now. With luck, I'll be asking dumb questions about themeing and adding rules for various sports in the near future.
Cheers,
Don