I don't like being the person chasing friends for money
A group of us are going to Loch Katrine. Organised the usual way that means two WhatsApp polls and one person fronting the ticket money, so I built a page instead.
A group of us are going to Loch Katrine. The Sir Walter Scott up the loch, then thirteen miles back along the shore on a bike, or on foot if you would rather.
Someone has to organise that. The usual way is a WhatsApp poll, then a second WhatsApp poll because the first one asked the wrong question, then one person quietly buying a block of steamship tickets and spending the next fortnight asking my friends for the money back.
I don’t like being that person.
Everyone books their own bits
The page tells you what is happening and when, and then sends you off to book your own things. Loch Katrine sells the steamship tickets. Katrine Wheelz hires the bikes. Neither of them needs me in the middle with a spreadsheet, so nobody ends up owing anybody anything.
Then it asks the handful of things a poll is bad at. Are you driving, and if you are, how many spare seats have you got. Walking or cycling. Bringing a bike, hiring one, or still deciding. Lunch. And whether you are getting in the water.
That last one is not admin. I just wanted to know.
One HTML file, and no build step
No framework, no CMS, no dependencies, nothing to keep up to date. Netlify serves the folder as it is, and Netlify Forms collects the replies for nothing, into a dashboard rather than into my messages at eleven at night.
The folder was created at 20:42 and the last commit went in at 20:51.
Everyone filled it in within a couple of hours, with more excitement than a form has any right to generate.
The trip hasn’t happened yet. I’ll get back to you.