Tararua Tramper Column

Team: Webteam Task list Roles Technology: PmWiki Links Development notes Website: About All recent changes Site map

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The Club's website

This is the first of a series of short columns about the club's website. It is written by the webteam and aims to encourage you to visit and use our website. You can visit the website at http://ttc.org.nz where you will find over a thousand pages of information, articles, and photos.

The club has had a web site since 1999, covering a number of areas of interest and value to you, as well as an introduction to the club for potential members. The website is kept updated on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, by the webteam who consist of: Peter Whiteford, especially for the trip reports; Neil Challands; Alan Wright; Simon Davis, technical aspects; and Peter Barber. Importantly you too can contribute directly to the website, but more of this later.

The next few columns will introduce you to what is on the website, how to find your way around it, and what there is to find. For a quick starter when you visit the website on the home page you will see a top and bottom menu bar. Click on the buttons to go to the page on that subject.

Using the website

This is the second of a series of short columns about the club's website. It is written by the webteam and aims to encourage you to visit and use our website. You can visit the website at http://ttc.org.nz where you will find over a thousand pages of information, articles, and photos.

One of the most important things about a website is being able to find what you want. On the club's website we try to make this as easy as possible, through a number of means.

Firstly, every page has a standard menu in to header (top) and footer (bottom) of the page, this will direct you to major topic areas.

Then there is the liberal use of "hyper links", these are the clickable text (visually blue underlined text) that appear in page content and take you to a related topic. Hyperlinks can also take you to other websites (visually this is signified with a small icon following the link).

Another important way of finding what you want is the "site map", you can find a link to this on the right hand side of the footer menu.

Pages can be categorised (or tagged), so another way of finding related information is to look at the categorised list of pages, for example pages about lodge trips.

Lastly, a website needs a search, and the TTC's search is on every page in the top right corner. Needless to say Google also indexes the website and provides links into the website from its search result main entry.

Website who for and what for

This is the third of a series of short columns about the club's website. It is written by the webteam and aims to encourage you to visit and use our website. You can visit the website at http://ttc.org.nz where you will find over a thousand pages of information, articles, and photos.

The club's website is for members, ex members and friends of the club, and for the general public. It provides current information, for example the fixture card, club night information, and comprehensive contact information includeing a who's who. It provides archive information, for example trip and tramping reports, previous who's who and fixture cards. photographs, indicies to the Tararua Tramper and Tararua Annual.

For both members and prospective members it provides information about joining, instruction, and out wide range of activities.

Email news groups

TTC members use our email lists to share up to the minute information on trips, club nights, and social events. They are great for publicising and organising trips, for organising ad hoc activities, and for discussions about gear, trips and routes, or related interests of the club. We have a number of email lists, see http://ttc.org.nz/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TTC/YahooGroups. These include groups for: ttc-news (from the committee); ttc-social (events and club nights); different trip types - biking, walking, fit, family, tramping, caving, climbing skiing; electronic distribution of the Tararua Tramper; as well as some administrative ones (general committee, ski and lodge committee, communications). You will receive notices about trips and club nights from other club members. Club members may use it for buy, sell, and swap. Contributions of a general tramping and outdoors nature or news are also made.

Sending a message to an email list

To send a message to an email group click on the "Post a message" link for a group on http://ttc.org.nz/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TTC/YahooGroups. You need to join the group to send a message. Attachments are removed from messages. Replies to messages go to the group.

Joining and leaving the email list

To join (subscribe) an email group click on the "Subscribe by email" link for a group on http://ttc.org.nz/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TTC/YahooGroups. To leave (unsubscribe) an email group click on the "Unsubscribe by email" link for a group on http://ttc.org.nz/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TTC/YahooGroups.

Why have email lists

Yahoo!Groups provide a free email news and discussion forum for the Tararua Tramping club, and have done so for 10 years. This is an advertising supported service that allows club members to administer their own subscription details, this is particularly useful for keeping email addresses current. Many club members are members of other Yahoo!Groups and find this an extremely convenient means of communicating and sharing information with the clubs, associations, and professional bodies of their choice. We use this because it avoids a plethora of partial and out of date lists held by members, and with the club website, where committee details are available, provides an effective and efficient means of communication. Additionally this supports the club's committee by reducing the workload of committee members and allowing their focus to be on club achievements, rather than administration.

:Category: Tararua Tramper