We are very excited about today's release of Welcoming Websites Wizard version 1.1! The new version is released on the eve of 2009 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Salt Lake City.

Welcoming Websites Wizard is a distribution of the Drupal content management system, which is tailored to meet the needs of Unitarian Universalist congregations. We hope that it will give Unitarian Universalist congregations the tools they need to reach out to prospective visitors, engage members and friends, and express a message of welcome and justice.

Version 1.1 of the Wizard empowers congregations to deploy a wealth of multimedia content on their websites. It includes the capability to create multiple slideshows, which can be displayed in a variety of locations throughout the site, using Drupal's block management system. The Wizard now also includes multiple podcast channels in addition to the basic sermon podcast channels, empowering congregations to provide podcasts on many different topics and in many different formats; visitors may download the audio to their portable audio players, or listen in via an audio player embedded in the browser. Moreover, the Wizard now includes support for uploaded video and embedded YouTube videos. These features give congregations the tools they need to "tell a story" about themselves, to visitors, members, and people throughout the world.

The new Wizard release also modifies the way in which information about individuals is stored, giving site editors more flexibility in displaying content about their ministers, staff, and lay leaders. Minor bugs identified in version 1.0 have also been fixed.

The Wizard, and all of the Drupal modules it requires, may be downloaded from the Wizard project page at drupal.org. Welcoming Websites is available to assist congregations with installation, support, maintenance, and custom development, as needed.