It took a little longer than was expected, but after a couple of delays, our club website has been relaunched with a whole new design. This new version will work towards showcasing our club accomplishments and add a whole new layer of membership services.

Before I go any farther, I would like to thank Jason Benson for his years of administrating the website. After being the webmaster for so many years, I'm sure Jason was happy to hand over the reins to someone else. Being the only person in charge of managing a whole website like ours couldn't have been easy for him.

For those who were wondering why a whole new design was necessary, let me share with you some of the reasons for the change. For starters, I think we can all agree that from time to time it can be a good thing to have something new. If that wasn't the case, we'd all be driving the same car we had since teenagers. Websites in particular seem to suffer from "aged design". I still come across websites that you can clearly tell were either designed in the 1990's or the web designer had the most basic understanding of websites. I'm not saying that was our case. I felt our website looked fairly modern by most standards and was clearly superior to the majority of R/C club websites.

What I felt was most lacking was some of the convenience features such as online payment, shopping, and communication features. The biggest hurdle was finding a system that would allow some of these more advanced features. Once a system was decided on, I had to look to see how much of the old system would be compatible with the new system. Unfortunately, none of it was compatible. But all is not lost. All the images and files were backed up and archived. Perhaps in the future, I will be able to reintegrate those items back into the site. One of the big downsides to this relaunch is that all user accounts have been wiped. In order to post in the forums or access some of the special portions of the website, you will have to re-register. I apologize for this minor inconvenience.

There are so many new features that there isn't enough time to explain them all. Be sure to go to the website and explore all the new features. I would like to encourage ideas and/or suggestions for improvements that could be made in the forums. I would also like to ask for your help if you find any errors. Websites as complex as ours can have "ghosts in the machine" that will reveal themselves under special circumstances. If you encounter any of the anomalies, please report them so I can fix it!

Some of the highlights of the new system are:

• Membership payments via online- You can now pay for your membership online through our online form. Upon filling out the form, your transaction will be completed through Paypal.com. You DO NOT need a Paypal account in order to use this function. All credit and bank cards are accepted. Plus you'll have the added benefit of a transaction record as proof of payment.
• Classified Ads- All registered members can post their own classified ad. This feature allows you to control the contact information and you can even upload your own pictures. This system is easy to use and you don't have to worry about selling items on RCUniverse and needing to ship items long distance. I'm sure we all have some stuff that we'd like to sell.
• Searchable articles- With the redesigned method of posting the newsletter, all articles that are written will be able to be searched and indexed. Articles that have been written in the past were published via a PDF document, but individual articles within that PDF file could not be searched. More previously written articles will be added to the website in the coming weeks.
• Improved collaboration- If you would like to write articles for our website please contact me via the webmaster contact form. Once you've been granted additional permissions, you as the author will be able to submit articles and make as many revisions to your own articles as you deem necessary. By opening up the system to more people, our website can become more of a collaborative effort and won't require the constant supervision of just one person.

Be sure to check back often as new features and information will be added soon.