The Southeastern Pennsylvania Government Webmasters (SEPAGov) group was formed in 2005-2006 by webmasters who have met through DVRPC’s Information Resources Exchange Group (IREG) and the National Association of Government Webmasters (NAGW) annual conferences. After three meetings at the county seats of Chester, Delaware and Berks, a Regional Webmasters Forum was held in Philadelphia for area government webmasters. The result of all these efforts was the creation of the Conference Planning Committee (aka the “Phenoms”) for the 5th Annual NAGW National Conference, which was held in Valley Forge PA in 2007.
The bimonthly conference calls (and a little bit of post-conference burn-out) kept us from meeting regularly in 2007-08. Through this time, however, we kept in regular contact via phone and email, and attendance at the quarterly IREG Webmasters Subcommittee meetings (founded 1998) and the Government Web Professionals of New Jersey (GoWProNJ) (founded 2008).
In October 2009, SEPAGov reconviened with the intention on having quarterly meetings around the middle of the month in January, April, July, and October. A central location for current members is the Chester County Government Services Center, which is just off of the US-202 Expressway on the outskirts of West Chester. At the January meeting, it was established that Dave Williams (Administrative Project Leader / Web Administrator, Chester County) would serve as President of the group and Joe Fazekas (Manager, Web & Creative Services, DVRPC) would serve as Secretary.
All persons responsible for content on a county or municipal government website are invited to attend. There are no membership fees; however, we have been taking turns picking up the cost for coffee and donuts, so there has been some discussion about how to cover those costs.
Our meetings center on a featured presentation, followed by discussions and updates. All future meetings will be scheduled from 10 am to 1 pm, with the discussion continuing over lunch at a local restaurant. If you are interested in more information about the group, don’t hesitate to contact us.
