Reflections on HUNI's Front Door

A mashup of screen shots of HUNI's first and current website home pages.

by Lorraine Vavul

The close of a year brings the opportunity to reflect upon the past and anticipate the future. As my tenure serving as HUNI’s Editorial Board Chair ends after 15 years, I am confident the HUNI team is prepared to provide members and visitors to our site with information and resources important to maintaining and preserving the architectural fabric of—and the quality of life in—our historic neighborhoods.


A look back


I am feeling nostalgic, and I hope you will permit me to share a look back on today's awesome website and social media presence with those of you who are newer to the historic neighborhood scene. Back in 2009 during my tenure as HUNI President, I realized the Internet could open the door to expanding HUNI’s reach. As former HUNI President Marjorie Kienle (Lockerbie) aptly reflects, “Websites are an organization’s front door.”  And 35 years into its existence, HUNI (founded in 1980 as an affinity group of Indiana Landmarks) had no electronic footprint and thus no front door.  With professional experience in communication and community engagement, I knew how to write and engage. But I had no idea how to design a website, and I hadn’t fully mentally connected the power of social media (in its infancy stage at the time) in a business context.   With the amazing assistance of my Historic Meridian Park neighbor Jay van Santen, we began the journey to bring HUNI online.

As a brief aside, it was Jay who approached me about serving as my neighborhood association’s VP. My volley back was to ask him to serve as HUNI’s first webmaster and designer of that site. (For anyone serving on the board of their NA, you’ll appreciate that it’s absolutely about the service and NOT the prestige of the role. Neighbors simply want someone to enhance the quality of life in the neighborhood by monitoring issues and fixing problems. It’s most efficient when everyone takes a turn and then steps aside to let the next person take their turn, but I digress.)

 

A screenshot of the first version of the HUNI website


A logo, content, and online


To take a blank screen and make it something special demanded a splash of color. But what color(s)? In response, HUNI conducted a city-wide logo contest. Sara Altizer submitted the winning design of our beautiful logo with its warm green, maize, cream, and mocha colors reflecting both Indianapolis’s Monument Circle and the rays of light preservation creates within a community. This became the foundation Jay used for the website. Now we needed content. A volunteer editorial board was formed to brainstorm quarterly on the issues important to life in historic neighborhoods as well as preserving the architectural fabric of these areas. After a dozen years, the Editorial Board—through Jay’s urging—recognized it was time for an updated/refreshed presence. Waiting until we had the appropriate visionary and architect for the new site allowed us to present today’s highly visual, contemporary site. We were incredibly lucky to find one of our HUNI neighborhood reps possessed the perfect background to take us to the next level of site sophistication (and, most importantly, he was willing to roll up his sleeves to make it happen). I am grateful to both Jay van Santen and Scotty Z Wilson for their commitment to creating sites geared to a great visitor experience and for their extraordinary dedication to preservation and advocacy for HUNI through the website.

Sitting around the table (and around the computer during COVID) with the Editorial Board over the last 15 years created many lifelong relationships, camaraderie and an appreciation of the many strengths each Ed Board member brought to the table. For more than a decade, the Ed Board served as the de facto leadership team for HUNI. We produced some amazing ideas such as the free historic neighborhood walking and biking tours—published via PocketSights—and linked to each neighborhood page. Early in the Editorial Board’s existence, which typically numbered 7-10 volunteers, we realized that there were a few neighborhoods with which each of us was unfamiliar. So we blocked our calendars for an afternoon adventure to visit each historic neighborhood in Marjorie Kienle’s van. After four hours, we realized we were less than halfway through seeing everything. So we organized the VanGo tour part deux tour a few months later. Think of it as the scene from Gremlins—in the movie theatre on Christmas Eve. Lots of laughter and fun. Let the good times roll. We were blessed to have history buff and historical research expert Sharon Butsch Freeland in the car to give us fascinating insights on prominent Indy leaders and landmarks. Julia Pratt (Speedway) and Sharon have been involved since the beginning and Marjorie joined the first year after we formed.  Garry Chilluffo (Homecroft & St Joseph Place), Paula Brooks (Ransom Place), Glenn Blackwood (Fletcher Place), Jordan Ryan (North Square), Bre Anderson, Patricia Stevens (Forest Hills) and Tom Abeel (Woodruff Place) have all served on the Ed Board. Thank you for your friendship and support.

As a former Holy Cross and a present Woodruff Place resident, new Editorial Board Chair Scotty Wilson deeply understands the issues and threats to our communities. I leave you in good and capable hands.

Lorraine Phillips Vavul (Meridian Park) served as HUNI President (2008-2012) and HUNI Editorial Board Chair (2010-2024).

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