[Awclist] AWC forum and web site, heads up re. Spring Clinic on April 13th

[Tom Fort]

AWC members-

The board has received lots of requests to make the club's web presence more up-to-date, and has been working over the winter to do just that.  There is still a lot of work to do, but since boating season is approaching and we are getting requests to send out classified ads and trip planning emails to the general membership, we decided to go ahead and publish what we have so far so everyone can begin to make use of it.

There is a new web site for the club available here:
www.adobewhitewater.org

There is also a bulletin-board style forum for members of the club as well as members of the public to share information here:
http://www.adobewhitewater.org/forum/

Both sites are functional, but not pretty at this point.  The information regarding clinic dates, roll sessions, etc. on the web site is correct, and we will try to keep it updated on a weekly basis.  Some information is a bit hard to read at this point as it was cut and pasted from the old sites, but we will be updating that as we progress with building the new site.

The forum is where members and anyone else should go to post regarding a boat they want to sell, a trip they are looking to organize, general river development information, beta requsts on a river they want to run, etc.  There are a few threads on the forum now that the board members made while the site was being tested and first put together, but we encourage everyone now to go visit the forum, register, post a new thread, and reply to any threads that catch your interest.  At the moment, there is a Main Boating Forum for general discussion, and a Boatyard forum for classifieds.


This thread in the Main Boating Forum explains how to register, start a new thread, or make a post to existing thread:
http://www.adobewhitewater.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2

This thread in the Boatyard forum explains how to start a thread to post a classified ad:
http://www.adobewhitewater.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16

Once the forum was published, we began to attract some Eastern European spammers.  So far we've just been deleting the posts and banning those users manually, but it seems we may need to make the registration process more difficult.  If anyone has WordPress/phpBB skills and would like to contribute their expertise, send an email to one of the board members or send a private message to the "admin" account on the forum.


Also, Dallas Hill has been hard at work putting together the AWC's Spring Clinic.  The date has been finalized as Saturday, April 13th beginning at 9:30 AM at the Taos Junction Bridge.  More information and the official flyer to follow soon, but save the date and spread the word!