Overview of our Website framework/template which also offers the best value. It is aimed at Town and Parish council but also used by Residents Associations and other community groups
My Parish Council, My Town Council, My Community Council
OgImage: General/My-Council-Logo.png


The website challenge faced by Town or Parish Councils and community engagement.

Council challenge

(The many tasks of a Parish, Town or Community Councillor)

As the first level of democracy in the UK, Parish & Town Councils have many duties. Add to this the need for transparency and we are reminded that the often-overlooked website is a key part of a Council’s ability to carry out these duties in a compliant manner. Now with GDPR in place as well as WCGA 2.2 compliance, accessibility, securing and ensuring the privacy of that communication has become a potentially high risk for a Council’s budget. The packages offered here by TEEC take all this into account and provide the best value solution.

Challenging times, during the Covid-19 pandemic, meant lots of additional information and support being needed and provided through things like the Parish Website. One advantage of using the template is the ability of clerks, councillors, and volunteers to all add content as almost no programming skill is needed to make 95% of all changes. A key feature that catches out many is the need to support the Royal Bridge protocol. This is built into the council template.

The Parish Council Websites Template was suggested by TEEC’s MD (Cllr Adrian Abbs B.Sc.) as a direct result of becoming a Parish Councillor for Greenham in 2018. Having seen the challenges that Parish Councils face, he commissioned the template, and to ensure a high-quality solution is available, he has setup within TEEC the hosting of this template, complete with a package of services available to anyone that needs it. The template is free to use for any Parish Councils or Community Project Teams, even if the hosting is with another company.

Help we offer for Councillors and Clerks

As an unpaid volunteer or clerk your time is important but often limited. By using this Template / Framework you can be sure that it provides a compliant solution, with a team of people working full time to support it. This ensures it is:

  • Always there (monitored and fixed if an outage occurs) 24x7x365
  • Up to date with the latest standards for usability (working across Desktops, Tablets, Mobiles and TVs)
  • Compliant with UK security and data protection legislation (GDPR etc.)
  • Tested regularly to ensure it works on new releases of web browsers (software like Google, FireFox, Safari and Microsoft Edge)
  • Has new features available as the needs of the Parish Council evolve

Contact us on 01635 282361 for more details.

We won't just try and sell you something, we will help you through the correct approval process so you can start saving time and money as soon as possible. This includes:

  • Details on what will be needed for the various meetings to get approval to change
  • Presentations and notes to share with Councillors proving the costs saved and the improved ease of use for Councillors, Clerks and Parishioners
  • A specification so you can run a thorough tender process
  • Contracts etc to appoint your new supplier

Example features aimed at reducing the need for specialist knowledge.

Below are some of the features (called widgets or modules) that can be placed on any page of your website. They aim to meet three goals. 

First, to remove the need for any specialist knowledge when updating something on the website. We aim to minimise the need to learn web development skills

Second, to make the update as efficient for you as possible. Most features do not require you to edit a page. You simply add the new item and any page using the widget is auto updated. This also includes integration with a Facebook page.

Third, to keep your site and content compliant with accessibility legislation, like WCAG, & to provide GDPR compliant forms.

Example feature for Next Meeting and Next Event

The feature auto updates to always display the next event and meeting wherever you place the "Next Meeting" and "Next Event" widgets. The solution also adds these meetings and events to your parish calendar.

19 January 2026

Example Meeting

England Monday 11:00 pm View Meeting Details
04 June 2025

Online Training Every Wednesday

Zoom 12:00 04/06/2025 to 12:45 View Event Details

Latest Parish News Feature

This feature below auto updates your home page as you add news items. We are using it to tell you about our own latest features

Our Latest News

AGAR and .gov domains

England

13

May 2025
Photo of AGAR and .gov domains

.gov Domains

Central Government is requiring all but the very smallest councils to now use a .gov.uk domain. 

We can help as we work with 20i who are on the register of providers. This is also where our web and email servers are based. It allows us to provide a complete solution from web template, through email to domain.

We work with you, so that the .gov domain is registered to you and we do so "at cost" for complete transparency.

Read more on this news story

Newsletter May 2025

England

01

May 2025
Newsletter May 2025

Using MyParishCouncil for a Newsletter

Introduction

We have kept the functionality for Newsletter very simple as our experience has indicated that Newsletters tend to fall into two types.

i.e. Sophisticated or Simple

For sophisticated ones, there is usually some software or solution that already exists to be able to manage the format of the newsletter in great detail. Trying to replicate that or capture all of that existing functionality would not be considered good value due to the costs associated with providing it.

However simple newsletters which act as outbound communication for what’s going on and what’s coming up is supported in the following way

What we provide

First we provide a widget that can be placed where you want on a web page that allows you to collect the email address of anyone who wishes to sign up for your Newsletter. This also includes the checkboxes to confirm you have permission to send the future communication by email according to GDPR regulations.

That list of emails can be accessed by the responsible person for the list (such as the clerk) in the admin part of the solution. They can export the list at any time as a .csv file. They can then copy and paste those emails into their email client and BCC those subscribed.

All communications of this nature must now have an unsubscribe method which is often simply a reply to the email sent saying “Unsubscribe”

As the person who sends the newsletter normally monitors the replies, then if they receive such a response, they can go to the admin area of the website and unpublish that newsletter email. This ensures, that the next time a list is exported, that email is no longer included.

What else do we provide

The website template already supports News Posts. This consists of a top image followed by a “What You See Is What You Get” WYSIWYG area.

As part of the support we offer for Newsletter’s, we provide a Microsoft Word Template. When this is used and content added, it can be simply copied and pasted into this WYSIWYG area and allows for the Newsletter to be posted as a news item on the website.

Also as Microsoft Word supports saving a document as a .pdf then the newsletter can also be saved this way.

This means when the newsletter is sent out to those that have subscribed there are at least 3 options.

  1. To send them an attachment as a .pdf (everyone can read this format on any device)
  2. To send then an attachment as a word document (still popular but not universal)
  3. Send them a link to the newsletter post on the website. (See this example)

Finally

If you have a Facebook page for your community, then you can connect your news posts to that Facebook page. That means as you post you newsletter on your website it automatically appears on your Facebook page.

Use the contact form to ask us any questions you have about Newsletter support.

Help (What word elements can be used when pasting across)

Heading 1 ,2 and 3 – They become H1,H2 & H3

Subtitle

Strong

Underline

Italic

FontSuperscript

FontSubscripe

How it looks on different devices


how it renders.jpg

Read more on this news story

Local Mapping Widget

England

01

May 2025
Photo of Local Mapping Widget

Having listened to several councils, who have indicated they wanted an interactive map where they could show their assets on, we are now launching that solution.

At the moment you work with us when creating the boundary for a particular area but we will be launching a tool to go along with the feature so councils can manage it themselves.

Do contact us if you are interested in being an early adopter. The feature is Free Of Charge for 2025.

Read more on this news story

Example feature for council Services

It auto updates any page where you have placed the Services widget (Module).

Example FAQ feature

It auto updates on any page where you have placed the FAQ widget (Module). It which works especially well with the "Helper Bot" feature

Please take a look at the official website.

https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/new-in-22/

The MyParishCouncil template code has been updated to fully comply with these recommendation as per our promise to keep the template compliant at no cost to clients

Yes, we can arrange for a .gov domain name for you and also provide email addresses for all councillors and clerks.

Our prices are transparent and can be found on this page of the website.

Based on research carried out by ourselves in Jan 2025. We are by far the best value solution and most often least expensive with the most built in functionality of any supplier focused on community, town and parish sites.

You can contact us by going to the "Contact Us" page using this link

Yes. Just install Orchard yourself, grab a copy of the recipe (template) and install the recipe

Yes, the template provides the base upon which much more can be added. With solutions hosted by ourselves, we will deploy fixes and updates automatically to keep the site compliant

The council reports and audits are on the Reports & Audits page. 

Go to the reports and audits page using this link.

The concept is to provide a solution that avoids any coding knowledge but allows a clerk and the Parish to perform its duties. So clerks do not need to understand html coding.

There is a meetings page showing the next, upcoming and past meetings. They contain the agendas and minutes form these meetings.

Just use this link to go to the meetings page.

Most people just need an hour to get to grips with the basics. However, we can provide as much training as needed or even act as a virtual clerk if needed.

Yes, the Template is free. The template is referred to as a Recipe by Ochard Core and we will keep a copy of the recipe available for download and use.

The hosting is done in the UK using a shared platform to manage costs. Nothing is stored outside of the UK and all relevant legislation is accounted for with the hosting package provided

In excess of 100 Parish and Town councils are using the template and our hosting solution. 

We offer 2 types of training as standard

  1. Self help: This is available all the time and includes you tube videos showing how to use every feature we offer.
  2. In addition to our initial face to face training of admins (usually clerks) we also offer additional training in 30 minutes blocks . These costs just £30 ex vat per block

First look at the menu and go to the Training tab. or click on this link to go to the overview

On a special event involving a senior member of the Royal Family, government websites (including Parish and Town Council), are meant to have their home page taken over by a page describing the event. This happens most frequently with a death. 

The template supports this feature to ensure seamless switching between the normal home page and the Royal Bridge page. It then supports the switch back again after the official period of mourning (in the case of a death)

The template supports both types of navigation. In addition an alignment preference is available if "Top" navigation is chosen.

The image below shows an example of both "Top" Nav then "Left" Nav. The screen grabs were taken from a HD screen size (1920 by 1080px).

top-nav-vs-left=nav.jpg

council Testimonials

Testimony From Altarnunparish Parish Council - http://altarnunparish.co.uk/

‘I have just had a new website completed by TEEC’s - My Parish Council team and the whole process and experience exceeded my expectations.

The service was courteous, friendly and very prompt. The team I dealt with developed an excellent understanding of my individual needs and concerns and took personal responsibility for delivering what was promised in a very friendly, supportive and business-like manner.

This company is very easy to do business with, they get it right first time and I have no hesitation in recommending their product and service.’

Robin Turner

Altarnun Parish Clerk