This is to support a charitable project my company is sponsoring:

Objective

Create a simple, attractive, blog-centric WordPress starter site that can be reused for individual Virginia high-school chess clubs and a statewide scholastic chess site.

The goal is not to create a highly customized website from scratch. The goal is to establish a good-looking, easily maintained baseline that can be duplicated and adapted for additional schools.

What the Starter Site Should Include

The initial site should establish:

  • Typography and overall visual style
  • Homepage
  • Blog/news page
  • Individual post layout
  • Basic page layout
  • Appropriate treatment of photographs and other graphics
  • Mobile-friendly design

Each subsequent school site should be easy to customize with its own:

  • School name
  • School colors
  • Photographs
  • Text and blog posts

Maintainability Is Important

I have substantial previous experience using WordPress and expect to maintain the sites myself after the initial setup.

However, I find some aspects of current WordPress theme and site editing less intuitive than earlier versions.

I previously hired a developer who produced an attractive site using a proprietary page-builder system. For background, hobartscholarship.org is an example of a site I previously commissioned; I am showing it primarily to illustrate the kind of maintenance problem I want to avoid, not as a model for the new design.

The site works, but the implementation made it much harder for me to make ordinary changes myself.

For this project, I therefore prefer:

  • Standard WordPress functionality wherever practical
  • A mainstream, well-supported theme
  • Minimal dependence on proprietary page builders or specialized development tools
  • Minimal unnecessary plugins
  • An implementation that another competent WordPress user could readily understand
  • No dependence on the original contractor for routine maintenance

Possible themes include GeneratePress, Kadence, Blocksy, or another theme the contractor recommends.

I am open to free or commercial themes, provided the licensing is appropriate for the number of sites I expect to create and I can maintain the necessary license myself.

Site Structure

At this point I do not believe WordPress Multisite is necessary.

Separate WordPress installations using the same reusable starter design are acceptable and may be preferable for simplicity.

I am interested in the contractor’s recommendation about the easiest reliable way to reproduce the starter site for additional schools.

Initial Deliverable

For the first phase, I would like the contractor to:

  1. Configure the reusable WordPress design.
  2. Apply it to one live pilot site.
  3. Make the reusable elements easy to reproduce on another WordPress installation.
  4. Provide a brief handoff explaining how the site is organized.
  5. Show me how to make the ordinary changes I will need to make myself.

As part of the handoff, I would like to be able to perform tasks such as:

  • Create and edit a blog post
  • Add photographs
  • Edit the homepage
  • Change a menu item
  • Change basic school colors
  • Create a new page

A short written explanation of how to create the next school site would also be useful.

Scope and Budget

This is a volunteer Virginia scholastic chess project that I am funding personally.

The budget for the initial reusable setup and pilot site is up to $500.

I would like the pilot site to be presentable by September 4, 2026.

The project should be a particularly good fit for someone who works regularly with mainstream WordPress themes and can produce a clean, maintainable site without unnecessary custom development.