Grow It Yourself Ireland
In 2009 with the help of enthusiastic fellow growers from the Waterford group, Michael Kelly established GIY Ireland to promote back-garden vegetable growing and the idea of GIY groups nationwide. The group approached Emagine Media to help with a vision for the web. As with any project, our first question was 'What exactly do you want to achieve?"
The organisation aims to establish GIY groups in every town in village in Ireland and achieve a comraderie amongst members that they felt trading stories and tips in allotments.
We suggested and built a social networking site for the members to use. Our pitch to the group, 'a facebook for farmers', accentuated the power of the web to connect people and exchange ideas.
The project was screaming for a good website, and we implemented a solution that is gaining in popularity by the day.
Custom design was applied to all aspects of the working application. Brand development of the logo and colour schemes used were rolled out to all aspects of the group's public communications - web, print, calendars and even t-shirts.
Users to the site can blog on beans, post photo albums of their prized plums, or enter discussions on the finer points of manure and how to find it.
Each member group is also registered with an events calendar for meetings, work gangs, and conferences upcoming. Local champions and organisers can control their section of the site, and post updates to members who receive automated emails.
We even threw in a little e-commerce for good measure, and no self-respecting grower should be without a GIY Ireland t-shirt.
Drop by, join the site (it's recession-busting free), and take a peek around. Share a tip if you have one, and most of all - get involved!
http://www.giyireland.com
