2023
Neill Skelly left the webteam during the year, leaving the team underresourced. More team members are most welcome, and the webteam mahi is a key part of club communications. Training is given, and there is plenty of documentation.
Peter Whiteford has continued his conscientious work putting up the trip reports from the Tararua Tramper and TTC's botanical series In the hills. Jenna Thoms has kept an eye on TTC on Facebook. David McCrone keeps a number of pages up to date. A special thanks to Jeremy Foster who provides the Place Name origins pages.
The Ski and Lodge Committee provides updates and online booking forms for the ski and snow fixture card. Online forms are also used to book the hall, enrol on bushcraft, join the club, and update membership details. Online calendars are used to display the availability of the hall and have been set up for Waerenga Hut.
The Tararua Tramper's Guide (Tararua Footprints) is maintained and updated by a group of club members, a new coordinator is sought for this mahi. This publication is an immensely valuable resource for members planning trips. It incorporates online DoC hut and campsite information, showing hut alerts, current hut information, and a Hut Index of all huts in the Tararuas.
The weekly activity reporters, Anne Walker and Alan Graham, kept the weekly trip summary up to date with the weekly activities of the club. The clubnight organisers have maintained the 2023 club nights information and photos with amazing range of facinating topics and speakers.
The club's website now has 2,956 pages of invaluable content, including 1,054 trip reports, 819 club night activity reports, 201 photo gallery pages, and 36 tramping recipes. We, the webteam, would like to see many more galleries of photos of trips added to the website. Club members are asked to provide multiple photos of their trips for the website's photo gallery.
The webteam has continued to support the online club nights using Google Meet, meeting setup, meeting troubleshooting, and providing support for the club night team to run the meetings.
The club thanks Hoopla Hosting for supporting the club by doubling our storage in the current plan.
During the year the webteam responded to the website review team with a response to the requirements, including suggesting that the website met some requirements, and requesting clarification on other requirements to ensure changes made meet the intentions of the website review team. No answer has been received.
Finally thanks to the many club members who make updates to the website, you input is noticed and appreciated.
2022
Neill Skelly, Lana Cleverley, and David McCrone have joined the webteam this year. Their addition to the webteam will help greatly with updates that can be done on the website, Facebook, and Twitter. More team members are always welcome. Training is given, and there is plenty of documentation.
Peter Whiteford has continued his conscientious work putting on the website the trip reports from the Tararua Tramper and TTC's botanical series In the hills by Chris Horne and Michele Dickson. Jenna Thoms has kept an eye on TTC on Facebook. Patrick Arnold has continued publicising club activities on
The Ski and Lodge Committee provides online booking for the ski and snow fixture card. Online forms are also used to book the hall, join the club, and update membership details. Online calendars are used to display the availability of the hall.
The Tararua Tramper's Guide (Tararua Footprints) is maintained and updated by a group of club members, led by John Thompson. John is looking for a successor for this valuable role. This publication is an immensely valuable resource for members planning trips. It incorporates online DoC hut and campsite information, showing hut alerts, current hut information, and a Hut Index of all huts in the Tararuas.
The tramping reporters, Tish and Peter, kept the weekly trip summary up to date with the weekly activities of the club. Ann Walker and Alan Graham have now stepped into the role The clubnight organisers have maintained the 2022 club nights information and photos.
The club's website now has 2,768 pages of valuable content, including 976 trip reports, 764 club night activity reports, 198 photo gallery pages, and 36 tramping recipes. We, the webteam, would like to see many more galleries of photos of trips added to the website. Club members are asked to provide multiple photos of their trips for the website's photo gallery.
The webteam has continued to support the online club nights using Google Meet, meeting setup, meeting troubleshooting, and providing support for the club night team to run the meetings.
The club thanks Hoopla Hosting for supporting the club by doubling its storage in the current plan.
During the year an enthusiastic group has reviewed the website with surveyed input from members. The report was being finalised as this report was being written.
2021
The webteam has been advertising for additional assistance, but unfortunately has not found any new members. This limits the updates that can be done on the website, facebook, and twitter. Assistance is always welcome, training is given, and there is plenty of documentation. In addition webteam members have had other duties, such as being President, to contend with.
Peter Whiteford has continued his outstanding work of adding the of trip reports from the Tararua Tramper and TTC's botanical series In the Hills from Chris Horne and Michele Dickson. Jenna Thoms has kept an eye on TTC on Facebook. Patrick Arnold has continued publicising club activities on We have continued to improve the way some pages render on mobile devices.
Kevin Mason provides online booking for the ski and snow fixture card.
The Tararua Tramper's Guide (Tararua Footprints) is maintained and updated by a group of club members, led by John Thompson. This is an immensely valuable resource for members planning trips. It incorporates online DoC hut and campsite information, showing hut alerts, current hut information, and a Hut Index of all huts in the Tararuas.
The tramping reporters, Tish and Peter, keep the weekly trip summary up to date with the weekly activities of the club. The clubnight organisers have maintained the 2021 club nights information and photos.
The club's website now has 2,605 pages of valuable content, including 902 trip reports, 723 club night activity reports, 194 photo gallery pages, and 33 tramping recipes.
Club members are asked to provide multiple photos of their trips for the website's photo gallery.
The webteam has continued to support the online club nights using Google Meet, meeting setup, meeting troubleshooting, and and providing support for the clubnight team to run the meetings.
During the year the website exceeded the 15GB storage for its plan with Hoopla Hosting. The club thanks Hoopla Hosting for supporting the club by doubling its storage in the current plan.
The webteam needs members with an interest in the club's online presence on the web to join it and contribute to its direction and future.
2020
There is always a steady stream of work for the webteam, and this has been a particularly busy year. Volunteers are sought to joing the webteam and are always welcome. Peter Whiteford continued adding to our stellar collection of trip reports from the Tararua Tramper, TTC's botanical series In the Hills from Chris Horne and Michele Dickson, and this year recipes published in the tramper. Jenna Thoms has done a great job, keeping TTC on Facebook upto date. Patrick Arnold has continued publicising club activities on We have continued to improve the way some pages render on mobile devices.
There was considerable work on the ski and snow fixture card by Kevin Mason so that all trips can be booked online, and a trip list is shown.
The Tararua Tramper's Guide (Tararua Footprints) is maintained and updated by a group of club members, led by John Thompson. This is an immensely valuable resource for members planning trips. This year online hut and campsite information publised by DoC is now incorporated into the guide, showing hut alerts and up to date hut information. In addition a Hut Index of all huts in the Tararuas has been added.
The tramping reporters, Tish and Peter, keep the weekly trip summary up to date with the weekly activities of the club. The clubnight organisers have maintained the 2020 club nights information and photos.
The club's website now has 2,448 pages of valuable content, including 827 trip reports, 686 club night activity reports, 189 photo gallery pages, and 32 recipes. Club members are asked to provide mutliple photos of there trips for the website's photo gallery.
The website was updated frequently during the Covid 19 lockdown, as a primary means of communicating with members.
The webteam was also please to be able to assist by initiating online club night's using Google Meet, and providing support for the clubnight team to run the meetings. Fifteen online only meetings were held. Guides were developed for presenting online and updated with the use of Google Meet.
The webteam is pleased that as well as receiving feedback and suggestions for improvement, all of which are taken seriously, there is also considerable feedback in the value the website provides to members.
The webteam is always interested in having members with an interest in the club's presence on the web joining it and contributing to its direction and future.
2019
There is always a steady stream of work for the webteam, and volunteers are always welcome. Peter Whiteford continued adding to our stellar collection of trip reports from the Tararua Tramper, and TTC's botanical series In the Hills from Chris Horne and Michele Dickson. Jenna Thoms has done a great job, keeping the TTC on Facebook upto date. Patrick Arnold has continued publicising club activities on the club's twitter account. We have improved the way some pages render on mobile devices thanks to suggestion from members.
There was considerable work on the website's centenary pages, with special thanks to Kristy Johnstone for the forms, Kevin Mason for setting up PoliPay, and Carol Kelly.
The Tararua Tramper's Guide (Tararua Footprints) is maintained and updated by a group of club members, led by John Thompson. The tramping reporters, Tish and Peter, keep the weekly trip summary up to date with the weekly activities of the club. Julia Fraser has maintained the 2019 club nights information and photos. Peter Barber has covered changes to the fixture card, the Bushcraft page, and added items to the Conservation pages.
The club's website now has 2,291 pages of valuable content, including 774 trip reports, 644 club night tramping reports, 183 photo gallery pages, and 25 recipes.
At the end of 2018 a suggestion was received out of the blue to convert the website to use WordPress (the website currently uses the PmWiki content management system). Considerable work and analysis was carried out to determine if the proposal would be operationally beneficial to the club and how it would meet and improve upon the requirements satisfied by the existing platform. It was concluded that the magnitude of the change proposed, and the uncertainty about the proposal's fit with the existing broad functionality and sustainability of the website did not support a change, and that such effort and investment would be better made to the current website. It was also noted that the club's website is well documented for those who look after it, and for those who contribute to it.
The webteam is pleased that as well as receiving feedback and suggestions for improvement, all of which are taken seriously, there is also considerable feedback in the value the website provides to members.
The webteam is always interested in having members with an interest in the club's presence on the web joining it and contributing to its direction and future.
2018
This year the website was upgraded to use HTTPS. HTTPS is HTTP web browsing requests transmitted over a secure encrypted channel. In simpler terms, visiting an HTTPS site rather a HTTP site protects you against an array of malicious activities, including site forgery and content alteration. Certificates are supplied and updated as part of TTC’s web hosting arrangement.
Considerable effort was put into the set up and configuration of the ttc.org.nz G-Suite subscription. G-Suite is provided to TTC free based on Dave's successful application to TechSoup for TTC to be registered as a non-profit. G-Suite is now in use for all General Committee business, and other club portfolios are encouraged to use it as well.
Peter Whiteford continued adding to our stellar collection of trip reports from the Tararua Tramper, and TTC's excellent series In the Hills from Chris Horne and the late Barbara Mitcalfe. Jenna Thoms has done a great job, keeping the TTC on Facebook upto date. Patrick Arnold has picked up the club's twitter account and publicising club activities.
Tararua Footprints is continually updated and maintained by a group of club members, lead by John Thompson. The tramping reporter, Tish, keeps the weekly trip summary up to date with the weekly activities of the club. David McCrone has maintained the 2018 club nights information and photos. Peter Barber has covered changes to the fixture card, the Bushcraft page, and added items to the Conservation pages.
The club's website now has 2,135 pages of valuable content, including 711 trip reports, 588 club night tramping reports, 172 photo gallery pages, and 25 recipes.
2017
Jenna Thoms has done a great job, keeping the TTC on Facebook upto date. Peter Whiteford continued adding to our stellar collection of trip reports from the Tararua Tramper, and TTC's excellent series In the Hills from Chris Horne and the late Barbara Mitcalfe. A group of club members, lead by John Thompson, have continued to review and update Tararua Footprints. The tramping reporter, Tish, keeps the weekly trip summary up to date with the weekly activities of the club. David McCrone has maintained the 2017 club nights information and photos. Peter Barber has covered changes to the fixture card, the Bushcraft page and added items to the Conservation pages.
The club's website now has 2,005 pages of valuable content, including 663 trip reports, 537 club night tramping reports, 168 photo gallery pages, and 25 recipes.
2016
This year Peter Whiteford continued a sterling job with the Tararua Tramper articles. Jenna Thoms has done a great job, keeping the TTC on Facebook upto date. Peter Barber has curated the conservation pages and coordinated updates to the tramping information and the online fixture card in addition to his workload as President. The tramping reporters, Sue and Tish, keep the tramping reports up to date with the weekly activities of the club. David McCrone has maintained the 2016 club nights information and photos.
The changes made to support mobile browsing of the website last year did not go far enough to support mobile devices, and a new "skin" has been developed and deployed. There is minimal change on large screens, but on mobile screens the side menu is hidden and it displays better.
A group of club members, lead by John Thompson, have undertaken to review and update Tararua Footprints.
- to find new members to support ongoing improvement of the website
- to have the resources to support the
- to see the Wednesday trips group use the email groups
- to have photos from the day walking groups, tramps, and other activities added to the website
- to see the chief guide and trip leaders use and update Tararua Footprints
The club's website now has 1,815 pages of valuable content, including 625 trip reports, 499 club night tramping reports, 162 photo gallery pages, and 25 recipes.
2015
The webteam have had a steady year, continuing to support club members use of the website. It is pleasing to see a small, but steady, increase in members availing themselves of the opportunity to contribute to the website. Jenna Thoms volunteered to, and has done a great job, keeping the TTC on Facebook update to date with club nights and topical posts. Peter Whiteford continues a sterling job with the Tararua Tramper articles. Peter Barber has curated the conservation and trip information groups of pages. The tramping organisers keep the tramping reports up to date with the weekly activities of the club. David McCrone has maintained the 2015 club nights information and photos.
Significant enhancements to the website were:
- improving the ease of editing through syntax highlighting of the editing area
- updates to make it more mobile (small screen) friendly
- have advertised for new members with no takers, additional team members would support ongoing improvement of the website
- had no engagement or interaction with, or feedback from, general committee, the IT liaison contact (re a number out-standing items), or the publicity officer during the year
- has been unable to support the
- would like to see the Wednesday trips group use the email groups
- have photos from the day walking groups, tramps, and other activities added to the website
The club's website now has 1,687 pages of valuable content, including 586 trip reports, 459 club night tramping reports, 152 photo gallery pages, and 24 recipes.
The webteam would like to see the chief guide and trip leaders use and update Tararua Footprints, a valuable resource describing most routes in the Tararua Ranges. To this end during the year a website add-on NZTopo has been enhanced to embed maps from https://topomaps.co.nz, into the website. Additionally kml
and gpx
GPS route files can be displayed, see the HoldsworthRoad-end page to see an example of how this looks. Particular thanks are due to Gavin Harriss who has provided club access and added features to https:/topomaps.co.nz for TTC.
2014
The webteam:
- have continued to support all club members who have added and updated content on the website. The self-service availability has been notably taken advantage of by the climbing and mountaineering group, youth programme, conservation group, and social committee. In the background the webteam also maintain the club's email addresses.
- introduced and recommended to the Publicity Officer the use of the website,
- through two meetings with its general committee IT representative, documented and raised a number of items related to improvements to the use of, and engagement with, the website and webteam, but received no feedback.
- was able to respond to the general committee's initiative to make the tramper available electronically to all club members by email by delivering the existing email tramper notification, developed by the late Michael Taylor and Neil Challands.
- have also added new content for the Michael Taylor bequest, and put in substantial work in adding bushcraft information for instructors and students, and created electronic forms by bushcraft enrolment, ski trip bookings, and the Michael Taylor bequest.
- have struggled to adequately support the Facebook and Twitter channels due to lack of content and publicity material, and resources.
The loss of two active and supportive members of the webteam means it is time to recruit new members to assist in the day to day editing of, and assisting club members in, the operation of the site. No experience is needed.
The club's website now has 1,536 pages of content, including 546 trip reports, 335 club night tramping reports, 130 photo gallery pages, and 23 recipes.
Tararua Footprints is an evolving resource describing most routes in the Tararua Ranges. TTC members are invited to contribute to its maintenance. If you wish to make a change or add information, please update the pages concerned, or contact the webteam to ask them to do so.
2013
The webteam have put a huge amount of work into refreshing the website with a new look and feel, using the clubs new colours and a new page layout.
Separate colours have been used for the Tararua Footprints part of the website.
This prompted a lot of work adjusting the layout and content of pages, and reviewing content.
The opportunity was take to remove all static images, some of which dated back a decade, replaced by random images from our photo galleries.
Reliability issues with Wellington Community Net, who have hosted us for free since the website was first set up, have driven the club to move to a New Zealand based web host, 24/7 Hosting. They have very good hosting plans, and the improved uptime has already been of benefit.
There have been a large number of usability improvements in the redesigned website, such as a sidebar, widespread use of tool tips, and better layout of many main pages.
2012
This year saw the major addition of new content, generously donated by Merv Rodgers, from his guide Tararua Footprints. The pages are intended for use by TTC and the wider tramping community, and we encourage all club members to update them or add notes to the "talk" discussion pages after trips in the area. The Tararua Footprints pages are using a new pilot layout, with colour and branding to be developed. TTC now has a
The tragic death of Michael Taylor on New Years Day meant a steep learning curve for club administration and membership as we discover all those little things which Michael used to do, some of which are still emerging from the woodwork six months later. Michael was a member of the web team and did a number of regular tasks, especially keeping general committee information up to date, loading tararua trampers, maintaining the submissions archive, and working as part of the webteam to keep the website accurate and current.
The club's website has 1,460 pages of content, including 453 trip reports, 335 club night tramping reports, 66 photo gallery pages, and 22 recipes.
2011
The year saw the demise of the ttc fit email group owing to declining numbers of active 'fit' trampers. The group has been re-born as ttc offtrack with a focus on navigation and off track tramping of all grades. Michael Taylor and Neil Challands have been progressing slowly toward converting the club membership database to SQL and providing access via the club website. This has mainly involved testing the suite of software tools available on the WCN servers for data security and usability.
Daniel Rogerson has started a TTC on Facebook page for the club, which is popular with members wishing to share photos and be notified of activities.
The Tararua Lodge pages have been revised with new photographs. Peter Whiteford continues a sterling job with the Tararua Tramper articles.
Updates to the website have come from a wide range of members which greatly assists keeping it up to date and of use to members.
A new skin for the website incorporating the new logo, and new colours is under development.
Our free hosting on Wellington Community net, with the generous sponsorship of the New Zealand School of Business and Government is assured for the time being.
The club's website has 1,278 pages of content, including 415 trip reports, 300 club night tramping reports, 54 photo gallery pages, and 12 recipes.
2010
The web team of Peter Whiteford, Neil Challands, Alan Wright, and Simon Davis was augmented by Peter Barber. Tramping reports were supplied by Sue Boyde, Brain Landymore, and Neil Challands. Michael Taylor has been active in the general committee and publications areas. It has been pleasing to see active use of the website by the climbing group and the social committee. During the year an email news group was created for electronic distribution of the Tramper, and for those interested in Walking. We now have email groups for news, social, biking, walking, fit*, family*, tramping, caving, climbing*, and skiing*, (active lists are *starred). For administration we have lists for Tararua Tramper electronic distribution, General committee, Ski & lodge committee, and Communications.
During the year the Wellington City Council has stopped all support for Wellington Community Net and were intent on closing it down until Wellington Community Net Trust formed by some interested members gained support of the council and a generous sponsorship to continue with the WCN, thus ensuring continued hosting of the TTC website.
The web team had a meeting in February to discuss the functioning of the website, and it is pleasing to report that it is considered to be working very well. The web team is supporting the club through investigating an updated look and feel for the website as part of the club's rebranding. The web team would like to see more use of the website and more committee and member contributions, through photographs, and helping the webteam. The web team is also setting up a means by which the people interested in maintaining a page's contents can be identified.
2009
The webteam of Peter Whiteford, Neil Challands, Alan Wright, and Simon Davis remained unchanged during the year. Additionally Liz Paton, Sue Boyde, and Neil Challands have keep the Tramping Reports up to date, and Michael Taylor for the General Committee Minutes?. It has been pleasing to see a growing number of minor contributions as members and other realise they can contribute and update details in the website and especially uploading photos. In particular the climbing group have updated their page, and created a climbing fixture card page.
During the year WCN upgraded their server and hosting service which improved the means by which the webteam can configure the site, access logs, and maintain email addresses, and this involved a conversion of email addresses which did affect a couple of people as we retired most of the older addresses. Unfortunately WCN had one problem during the year which resulted in the website being down over a weekend.
The ttc communications email group has assisted keeping the webteam informed and thus able to keep the website updated. The webteam asks that consideration be given to always involving them in providing and publishing information to members. In particular the web team would like to obtain early access to soft copies of the fixture card and prompt access to the "Who's who" list.
The web team would like to see more use of the website and more committee and member contributions, through photographs, and helping the webteam.
The club continues to enjoy and appreciated the hosting provided by Wellington Community Net. This hosting is threatened by proposed funding cuts by the Wellington City Council.
2008
The webteam of Peter Whiteford, Neil Challands, Alan Wright, and Simon Davis, have continued to keep the website up to date and supported. Additionally Diane Head has keep the Tramping Reports up to date, and Michael Taylor for the General Committee Minutes. For the first time WCN issues have meant the website was unavailable for a couple of weekends during the year. These were resolved and have not reoccurred.
During the year a new email group, ttc biking was initiated. Members have taken advantage of being able to upload their own photographs and stories to the website.
A developer has been contacted to provide some additional features that will allow a selection of events to be automatically placed on the front page, and in other places, eg family trips on the family pages.
The promotion and use of the ttc communications email group has assisted keeping the webteam informed and thus able to keep the website updated. The webteam asks that consideration be given to always involving them in providing and publishing information to members.
The web team would like to see more use of the website and more member contributions, through photographs, and helping the webteam.
The club continues to enjoy and appreciated the hosting provided by Wellington Community Net.
2007
The webteam has added a new member, Peter Whiteford, who is keeping the trip reports from the Tramper up to date as well as catching up with the backlog. Neil Challands and Alan Wright also provide content for the website, and in their other roles Diane Head and Judith Maxim keep the tramping reports and tramperdetails updated respectively.
During the year a Whitireia student team undertook a development that had the potential to assist with the update and selective display of club events, but unfortunately the result did not meet expectations and was not implemented. Subsequently an approach to the PmWiki community has identified a developer interested in developing a PmWiki extension that will provide the functionality we are seeking. While this involves an expense it is felt this will provide a better longer term approach to making the website more usable.
During the year the content has been kept updated, especially the forum and annual events. The contacts page has been changed to be updateable online.
The webteam wish to encourage the General Committee, activity organisers, and club members to make greater use of the club's website. The webteam is always looking for more members and contributors.
During the year the a message of support was sent to the 2020 Communications Trust urging continued support of Wellington Community Net by the Wellington City Council. The club continues to enjoy and appreciated the hosting provided by Wellington Community Net under the auspices of the Wellington City Council.
2006
During the year the webteam has been active in keeping the website content up to date. Additional trip reports, sourced from the Tararua Tramper, have been added, and a backlog of reports is slowly being overcome. The Tararua Tramper Index, collated by Neville Lockett, was added to the website. The capability to categorise trips by location and type has been added and all new trips have been categorised.
Diane Head adds the tramping reports weekly. The forum is updated regularly, but would benefit from more contributions from club committees.
The webteam is very responsive to suggestions and input from members, notably the Huts pages were updated in response to requests from the Huts Convenor, Photo Competition and New Member's Evening pages were added, as was the Contact the right person page. The Photos pages have been revamped and some members have added their own trip photos.
The website is an enduring resource for club members for both current information, eg transport operators, and historical information, eg trips.
Latterly the web team has advertised for assistance in maintaining the content of the website after one member, who had been inactive for some time, withdrew. In concert with this the webteam.webteam role descriptions and task lists were added to the website.
The club's website is arguably one of the best in New Zealand, and serves as a major source of information for prospective new members, as evinced by the new members evening. The club continues to enjoy and appreciated the hosting provided by Wellington Community Net under the auspices of the Wellington City Council.