The skies are growing darker as we move toward the solstice. The shortest day is near. It feels like a time to pause and reflect. Some changes we choose. Others arrive without warning.
What happens when the technology behind your decade-old website starts to fail? For us, this became real when the themes we have used since 2017 to style our WordPress websites disappeared. No updates. No support. Gone. If you know WordPress, you know the platform itself is solid. But the themes and plugins that extend its capabilities can age out over time. They lose developer support. Sometimes they vanish without warning. That is what happened here.
We now need to refresh the look and feel of all our websites much more urgently than planned. Earlier this year, we moved from traditional shared hosting to a Microsoft Azure virtual server environment. This change gives us flexibility and scalability at a lower cost than before. It will help us create websites that are more interactive and accessible. However, this transition will take longer than expected because we now need to develop new features and themes at the same time. We ask for your patience as we work through it.
What does this mean in practice? At times, our traditional website will appear to work as normal, but some features may be missing. At other times, you may see a landing page or a partial version of the new site while we continue to build. Occasionally, we will share a link to the old site for access to content that is not yet migrated. Links may break. Content may be missing. We will do our best to keep you informed about our timeline and progress.
These are difficult times. Clouds of change and the unknown are on the horizon. Year-end is a time to let go of what holds us back. For us, that includes outdated technology. For you, it may be something else. Take this time to hold your loved ones close. Dream of warmer futures.
We look forward to sharing what we learn in the new year. Until then, we wish you a restful holiday and a happy new year. Our offices will be closed from 13 December to 11 January.
