This weekend, I spend quite a few hours updating various features of the site and implementing new features. These are the major changes:
1. Reorganized menu system to simplify navigation
2. Implemented drop-down menus for faster navigation
3. Developed new sidebar blocks for Recent Content and Upcoming Events
4. Upgraded CRM database software for managing member info, family info, and boat info
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In the future, I want to work on the following, hopefully with help from others:
1. Further integrating the CRM system to support better race registration, online membership directory, PHRF boat database
2. Investigating and implementing a secure online payment system for member dues and race registration fees
3. Improving calendar and schedule display, especially for printing
4. Improving printed formatting of race results to match on-the-web format
5. Adding and updating help text to cover more site features
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From other site admins and LCYC personnel, I would appreciate help with the following:
1. Adding and updating menu links so that almost all content can be directly accessed through the drop-down menus
2. Checking membership information in the database and associating individual records with family records and boat records
3. Adding more information from the old site, such as race results from previous years
4. Organizing, labeling, and tagging photos in the gallery, to support searching by boat or other photo content
5. Anything else I forgot ;)
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From the members, I would appreciate feedback about the site. Please reply to this with comments, constructive criticism, suggestions, and even what you think works well.
Thank you for your support of this new site and your willingness to learn a new system.
Cheers,
Jason Hyerstay, LCYC Webmaster
Improving
Dear Jason:
Thank-you for your dedication to the LCYC website. While I havn't fully understood your recent improvements, the effort is noble and appreciated. The easier the system is to use the better for the general member. Michael Barker
web site improvements
Jason,
More cudos for the work and effort you are putting into club web site. I want to ditto the comment on keep it easy and believe the drop down boxes do help. I also appreciate you incorporating the history (results and club info) from previous site. Paying on line and club member information will be great but want to ask the question about how secure the secure site will be in this wonderful modern age of hacking and other identity theft etc.. Finally, I would appreciate organization of the pictures into race or boat search as extra bonus but not a necessity. Thank you again for your efforts.
Gene
Thank you, Jason
The drop-down menus are faster and easier to navigate, and the sidebars are great. Making it easier to register for the RC will, I hope, result in more racers volunteering next season. I question the security of paying dues online; we'll probably stick to "the check is in the mail." Thank you for doing a thankless job.
Thanks for your support!
Thanks for your support on this. Regarding payments, the CiviCRM software I have installed (see the link in the footer for more info) would provide the framework for the bookkeeping of any transactions, but any actual transactions would happen through a dedicated provider such as PayPal, which has an excellent reputation for security. Our site would not be storing or directly receiving any credit card information or anything more sensitive than an address and phone number. Don't worry, I don't want to rush into any of this, and no payment system will go live without extensive testing. The way I see it happening is maybe next spring we might be ready to try to support race registration fee payment for non-members. After seeing how that goes, we could look towards doing 2008 dues online for those who choose.
Please keep the questions and feedback coming. I've been working in a bit of a vacuum on some of this stuff and it is great to hear from members about how the site is working for everyone. I also want to thank all the members who have helped out on the site: Ernie and Bette for doing the job before me continuing with more content creation; Jill for the speediest scoring and content management; Lauri for her work on the database and advice to me about moving it online; Deni for his membership work; Dale for lots of content, writing and editing; Gene for a bunch of links; and everyone else for logging in and extending the LCYC community spirit online. Please forgive me if I forgot anyone.
So, just to reiterate, any online payments will be processed by PayPal (an eBay subsidiary) or another professional processor. LCYC will never collect, store, or directly process credit card information. Furthermore, any online payment system will not go into action until we have extensively tested it. I share the concern for privacy and security.
I should also mention that I want to make the site a better resource for LCPHRF members and operation, as well as for Etchells Fleet 25. If anyone from VSC or MBBC is reading this, I would be happy to provide advice and support if you want to use Drupal, CiviCRM, or Gallery in your sites. There would be some benefit to using the same software on all three Lake Champlain club sites.
Cheers,
Jason
BTW, Gene, do you want to volunteer to take charge of the photo stuff and start tagging images? :)
Much improved from old site
I think the new site is great. It really takes advantage of what the internet is supposed to be: not just a fancy bulletin board but an interactive tool, which is perfect for a larger club like ours that may not enjoy face to face communication among the members as often as needed.
Online payment is a fantastic idea (only a step or two ahead of the inevitable anyway)-don't let any of those ol' Luddites try to talk you out of it!
A couple of suggestions; there seems to be a little confusion about where to post comments (blogs, forums, etc.), and where those threads end up when they get bumped from the first page of the home page. For example, I remember a post about club moorings in Converse Bay (to which I replied), but now I can't find it. Should it have been archived under "cruising" instead, perhaps under "destinations"?
Maybe a series of brief primers by the webmaster would help?
Chris H - here's the Converse posting
Hi Chris,
I was only able to find it via a content search, but here's a link, I hope: http://lcyc.info/node/365