The West Virginia Municipal League exists to keep local governments strong in the state of West Virginia.  Established in 1968, the league serves municipalities by providing a unified voice in legislative matters impacting cities and their populations.  It also assists by providing education and resources for local government officials.

Company story:   

With a small administrative staff, the West Virginia Municipal league found it increasingly difficult to maintain its own website.  It hired Bricks Without Straw to completely redesign and maintain its website. 

 Website

The league knew what it wanted—a place where members could quickly and easily find answers.  Debbie Price, research and legislative analyst for WVML, said, “We provided what we wanted to see information wise. . .we didn’t want everything public. . .we wanted a private area open to just our members.”  With that in mind, Jamie improved the layout of the site and incorporated better graphics, giving the site “a fresh, new look”, according to Price.

The website has proved a valuable aid for the small staff.  Price said, “(After) July 1,  we’ll get an influx of calls coming in from newly elected officials. . .we try to really let them know what we have available here and the first thing we push is to make sure they register on our website so they can get back to the member area and peruse that.”

Saving Time

Jamie’s expertise in technology provided other solutions for the limited staff.  As an example, Price cited Jamie’s idea to move registration for WVML’s conferences online.  “He said to us, “We can save you time. . .”  Bricks Without Straw handled the details, setting up a PayPal account for the league (notifying them when anyone registers for an event); Jamie also set the program up to automatically generate a database for an event, a task previously done manually.

When the league wanted to implement a listserv or discussion lust, a way for its members to quickly and easily communicate with one another through email,  Jamie’s experience paid off for them again.  “We heard of other groups using it and went to Jamie and he was able to set it up in a fairly short amount of time,” Price recounted.

Online Traffic Course

Recently,  Bricks Without Straw helped the league serve its members in another way—by helping WVML develop an online traffic course.  West Virginia code allows for a prejudgment disposition alternative for those facing citations.  Each municipal court has the option of allowing offenders the chance to pass a test that will prevent them from losing points on their license.  Realizing that many municipalities lacked the finances or staff to oversee such a program, the league saw the need for a course it could offer to municipalities at no cost for them to use.  The WVML went to Jamie. “He pretty much took the idea from start to finish. . . and was able to implement it for us,” Price said.  He found a workable software, helped formulate the test, and again set up a PayPal account for the program.  Jamie continues to maintain the course and troubleshoots any glitches that arise.   In the six months since its inception, the league has received a favorable response from municipalities that utilize the program.

Bricks Without Straw truly offers smaller offices with limited technology experience, such as WVML, an invaluable resource.  As Debbie Price said,  “ (I’ll say to him), tell me again, get me through, take me from point A to point B to point C. . . he’s there, he hangs in there with me.

Bricks Without Straw is a digital agency and design agency based in South Charleston, WV United States and Ota, Tokyo, Japan.

We offer a range of web design services including: web development, e-commerce services and email marketing. We also offer a range of graphic design services including logo design and exhibition stands.

We love working with clients of all sizes in a range of industry sectors, creating and implementing inspiring and hard working concepts and campaigns for business-business and business-consumer clients.

Valicia Leary

Bricks Without Straw has continued to exceed our expectations with their design work, support and attention to detail. We would highly recommend their services. They have a wonderful team and we enjoy our working relationship with them.

Carol Fulks

Bricks Without Straw has continued to exceed our expectations with their design work, support and attention to detail. We would highly recommend their services. They have a wonderful team and we enjoy our working relationship with them.

Patti Hamliton

Bricks Without Straw is bringing our association into the 21st Century! He brings us ideas and innovation for our web site and other tools of technology that help us enhance our image and our message.

Rebecca McPhail

Bricks Without Straw has continued to exceed our expectations with their design work, support and attention to detail. We would highly recommend their services. They have a wonderful team and we enjoy our working relationship with them.

Bill Raney

Jamie is one of the most committed and energetic professionals we have ever worked with over the years. He seems to work all the time with full 24-7 accessibility and immediate response. Bricks Without Straw has raised our collective confidence for maximizing opportunities in today’s world. We simply could not have done it without them.

Jan Vineyard

The demands and responsibilities to our members mandate that the online presence of our associations and our internet capabilities are reliable and seamless. Add creativity to that mix and one gets the complete package with Jamie Summers-Brown and his staff at Bricks without Straw.