Most OurLocality sites need little or no help, and the free guides and Helper cover the rest. But if your website does real work for your project, such as promoting events, recruiting volunteers, reporting to funders or keeping members informed, it is worth asking who looks after it when something goes wrong. In many groups the answer is whoever has the password and a free evening. Then a volunteer moves on, the login is lost, and a small problem becomes a month without a working site.
An Extras plan puts someone at the wheel. For £300 to £900 a year you get a set number of help requests each month and a target reply time, from three working days down to the same day. That covers the everyday problems that stall a site: menus, layouts, images, user accounts, security tidy-ups and email for your domain. Because the cost is fixed and paid annually, it can go into your budget or a grant application as a known line, not a surprise. If an issue is bigger, you get a quote before any work starts.
Be clear about what it is not. Extras does not add features or plugins, write your content, or turn OurLocality into a commercial web agency. Support is still given by volunteers on a best efforts basis. What it buys is priority and continuity for a site that matters to your project.
The best bit. Every penny of plan proceeds goes to the Treescapes initiative, incubated by Sustaining Dunbar, so your budget also plants and protects local trees.
