News about the website! A message from the Webmaster (Mel Smith)

As part of the move to the website, the details of the next meetings and assignments are going to be displayed on the website rather than on the blog. There will be a link to the correct website page on the Facebook events page, but we hope that as you use the website more you will get used to where to find it.

The intention is that, whenever possible, the information will be available on the 19^th of the month. Occasionally, when there is a special event, such as the North Wales Tour, this will appear early to allow for booking time.

Consequently, the 19^th of each month will be the date on which to expect updates to the website. There will be other updates of course, including those which happen automatically. At the moment these include the blog page (which is updated from Cliff’s Google + linked Blogger account) and the Twitter/Facebook feed (which is an automatic feed from the group’s Twitter and fb accounts).

We are looking into the use of a group Flickr account to update the gallery, provide the members’ photos for the slideshow and a source for the Independent newspaper to view and select photos for publication. The logistics of this is being considered by Brian and me at the moment. If you want to share any information can you please message me direct then I don’t risk missing the information on on the fb feed. This will all be officially proposed and discussed once we know it is a viable option. 

This is important, as we need to establish procedures for any members who can’t (or don’t want to) take up this option.  It is an important move for the group as it will reduce the amount of effort for both the organisers of the group and all of the members (No more re-sizing! Hooray!!)

So that all of the members are aware, there are two other major changes about to be dealt with on the website:

1)      The blog

At the moment comments are difficult to post because of the way the blog is distributed. I have started research into this and believe I have a solution. When this is in place (soon) I will inform you all. All members are welcome to submit a blog on a topic which they feel will benefit the group. Please contact Cliff to do this. It will involve you sending a Word (or compatible word processing) document containing the blog to him via email. Only expected submissions from known sources will be opened to avoid viruses etc.

2)      The forum

The forum has had two issues which we want to ensure are solved before we continue to use this particular application. Firstly, not all of the member sign in information was provided to us so we couldn’t identify who was joining the forum. This was an error in the application and we have recently been informed that they have solved the problem but I have not tested it to my satisfaction yet.

The second, and the more serious issue, was that it linked to member’s fb information automatically which potentially displayed far too much information to the wide world of the Internet. As the group does not want to be responsible for this we need to find a solution. Again, as soon as I have then we will let you know. We would like to use the forum as a means to provide Mal’s  photography Q&A (and more).

Mel Smith (Webmaster)