As part of the Taking the Club Forward process, we’ve reviewed the way the Club officially communicates with you. Most of it is related to the website but we haven’t forgotten those without regular internet access.

On the website, we’ve cut down the amount of information on the home page, split up the information that members and non-members see, and provided a new news service on the web and on paper. We hope to develop the news service further over the coming year, particularly by providing more focused news by email.

The home page will carry an occasional important announcement at the top, we plan to use this rarely so as not to devalue its impact. This “news flash” will be visible to members and non-members.

For members logged into Serpiebase (our membership database), the home page shows the latest news at the bottom of the page. If you need help logging into Serpiebase follow the instructions at:

http://www.serpentine.org.uk/serpiebase/

Please take the time to check your details in the database, it’s our main way of contacting you. And while you’re there, why not submit a photo too?

For non-members, some introductory text is shown on the home page.

Regardless of whether or not you are a member, you will always be able to access the latest news at:

http://www.serpentine.org.uk/news/

For those accessing the web via a PDA, there is a plain text version of the news at:

http://www.serpentine.org.uk/news/pda.php

Incidentally, we’ve added a plain text interface to the events planner at:

http://www.serpentine.org.uk/events/pda.php

The menu system has been revised to make it easier to find what you want. And to help you further, the Google search engine can now be used to search the site using the page at:

http://www.serpentine.org.uk/search.htm

A minor improvement to the home page is that the Latest Results and Upcoming Events headers are now direct links into the respective pages. We’ve also updated the picture of Marianne Morris slightly.

Behind the news stories is a flexible news manager enabling us to keep you informed with up-to-date news. Stories are dated making sure only current stories are shown, and enabling us to manage them more efficiently. Only a limited number of people will be able to post news stories so you won’t have to wade through irrelevant stories. The news manager just needs normal web access so authors can post quickly without needing to bother about HTML or FTP etc.

Each story will be clearly labelled with the date, time and author so you know when it was posted.

Subject to volunteer time to resolve some server issues, we plan to release the email version of the news in the summer. Each story can be marked for inclusion in a weekly newsletter sent out by email. You will be able to choose not to receive newsletters by unchecking an option in your Serpiebase entry. The distribution of the newsletter is separate from the e-groups, and we promise to use it only for important announcements not for chatter.

And we haven’t forgotten those without Internet access – a printed version of the news will be part of the Sentinel (available in the clubroom) from now on. By using the same source, we can ensure that whether you get your news on the web, on your PDA, on paper, or (ultimately) by email, you will always get up-to-date and relevant information.

The news manager does not replace static web pages for background information. For instance, you might find an announcement about a particular Wednesday night’s arrangements on the news page, but general information about Wednesday night runs will remain on the relevant web pages.

As with all of these sorts of changes, there may be a few niggles so bear with us if we need to fix them. We will listen to and learn from your feedback. Above all, we hope you find the new features useful.

If you have any comments on the news service please email davidknight@serpentine.org.uk

Issues about the website should be sent to Rob Maslen at webmaster@serpentine.org.uk

Submissions for news stories should also be sent to Rob.

Further info.