The difference a year makes

After a solid year of use, our website DID grow substantially, just not in the way we anticipated!  Like virtually everything else, the COVID-19 pandemic really threw off the time we would normally spend updating the site (April & May).  That being said, the pandemic did really stretch our thinking with this site!

Over the past year, here's what we're celebrating as new additions to this ambitious project:

• We used the website to build the first ever EastMO Congress Packet for use by all tournaments.  Not only was this super fast for coaches to access, it made organizing the packet really easy.  Decreasing administrative time means more time for coaching students!
• For the first time ever, we were able to take community award submissions directly through the website instead of email.  A record number of nominations occurred as a result - including MANY student nominating their coaches for Coach of the Year or Assistant Coach of the Year!
• Coaches were able to upload ALL NSDA districts paperwork directly to the website, significantly decreasing the amount of "stuff" they would have had to bring to districts.  (Sadly it was cancelled due to the pandemic)
• During the pandemic, the website was used to keep coaches, students, parents, etc. up-to-date on the status of NSDA, NCFL, and MSHSAA tournaments.  
• An additional collaboration page was created to help students and coaches access resources they might need to get through distance learning (not just Speech & Debate, but general teaching tools, tech resources, grab-and-go meal locations, free internet resources, etc.)
• An entire portal on the website was built in a matter of days to organize a bid system to determine NSDA National qualifiers.  Again, all paperwork was submitted through the website, making working remotely much easier.
• We were able to host the EastMO NSDA District Awards Ceremony -- embedding a YouTube feed made it easy to share the link.
• The website served as a hub for EastMO's NSDA Nats2020 team during the first ever online national tournament.

So what's on the agenda this year?
We still want to get a volunteer page, student page, judge page, and curriculum page established.  But honestly, that's probably going to be on hold for a while longer.

As the world of education continues to change, we'll use this website to organize our Speech & Debate community.  We don't know exactly what that looks like just yet -- needs were emerge as the pandemic continues -- but we expect a frequently changing calendar and (potentially) hosting or supporting virtual tournaments will be a thing!

Stay healthy everyone!