Hello World!

It takes a lot to bring a project from the conceptual stage to planning and execution. Early this year, I recommended to the board of ICA to consider building a website and strengthening our online (virtual) presence. I envisioned this website to be a place where our event tickets could be sold, have business sponsors, and be a place for people to find out about our upcoming cultural events. ICA had a website before that and eventually, it was taken down due to many reasons which I would not want to dwell on it for this post. I promised the board that within 6 months time frame, we could have the website up and running just in time to advertise our Now Ruz event. The board unanimously agreed to pay the fees and I embarked on a new exciting journey.

In my mind, building the website just needed the hosting fees and a few dedicated volunteers. I would volunteer as a webmaster but I thought if I could find just a couple of other volunteers who could help with the front end of the website we'd be in good shape for our delivery. To do that, I thought that a few emails and outreach posts through Facebook and Instagram would be enough to garner a few supporters willing to help. After two rounds of emails and Facebook and Telegram posts, I could not believe I'd be the only person working on this project. Support for this volunteer-based task was very minimal. I tried forming a task force consisting of people whom I knew could help me with this. Unfortunately, even if they could help they have been too busy to help. There had been many dreadful times when I had seriously considered admitting defeat. Admitting that I alone could not handle this because, I, just like everyone else, was a very busy person. I don't want to complain or rant about this. I guess I should have known that getting people to volunteer efforts for a project is never an easy task. It's a monumental task! It takes a lot to get a team of people to believe in a vision, then buy into the vision and dedicate efforts to it. I was slowly coming to realize that the plan I had could be nothing more than wishful thinking if I didn't have the community's support.

Over the next four months, I had to learn everything about website building from the ground up. Being a part-time student, and a working professional with lots of side theatre projects here and there, I can definitively say I didn't have time for this project, but I made time for this. Looking back, I will say that I've enjoyed the learning process and am happy to see this website finally published. While there are a lot of functionalities that I like to add to this website and personally believe the design of the website could be improved, I'm glad to call this a success.

In reflection, I think I have learned a few valuable lessons along the way as well. Besides the technical website-building stuff, I guess the most important lesson here is to make sure there is a team that fully believes in a vision and is committed to bringing the dream into reality. This is because ideas alone don't shape our world. It's the execution of those ideas that make our world. And, finally, it's probably better not to promise anything until after you have a dedicated team behind you. Big projects are not one-man jobs; they are team-oriented jobs. So get a team of diverse but like-minded folks. Get a team that upon believing in the vision, is willing to sacrifice the time for the greater good.

If you're reading this far, know that at our organization (ICA), we could always use volunteers. It does not have to be for website building. So if you think you'd want to volunteer for an upcoming event, feel free to reach out to us.

~Peyman M.