Theme

Down Under / Austrailia

Duration

6pm Friday, 16th February to 2pm Sunday, 18th February 2007.

Events

• Aussie Crafts
• Cocktail bar crawl
• Hikey hike hike
• Loughborough Town Trail
• Micro Brewery Trip
• Onsite Activities
• Pajama Party
• Pub Games
• Real Ale Pub Crawl
• Sheila’s Wheels (Donnington Motor Museum)
• The Great Central Railway
• (or as) Staff

Wherever you write about your perspective of this rally please try to include a link to this post so that that a link is shown beneath so others can find and read about your experiences.

Since the last rally, SLIC had a Christmas meal with GLMW. This went done well and a great time was had by all. SLIC is slowly building up, but at the moment we are having problems as we are confined to only one part of London, but at the moment James Knights is sorting this out and hopefully over the next year we will increase.

The SLIC Website has been improved a lot since the first version that was made over a year ago. It is looking more professional mainly due to the advance in skills that have been achieved. For this the Feb rally, SLIC has its biggest turnout ever. This shows that we are gradually getting bigger and are planning to take over the world.

At the beginning of my year I set forth to improve the online SSAGO community, we’ve always had a strong number of messageboard users but it has always been discussion and not enough creation. Hopefully SSAGO News Online will encourage the writers out there and get everyone more involved and more aware of everything that goes on around our members.

What goes in?

The point of the messageboard is discusion, the point of a blog system, particularly a multi-user one, is expressing ideas and sharing experiences. If you’ve just been on a camp for instance write about it, how you felt, what you liked, the more friendly and interesting the article the more people will read it.

I suppose this also works for Club Reports, if you’ve got a dashing tale of success or failure over the last term or year share the experience so others can learn.

What make a good article?

There are thousands of people across the globe that have tried to answer this, which means there is no real true answer. If you write honestly and frankly people will see the sincerity, doesn’t matter how well you write it’s trying that matters.

Don’t worry if you think that your post or comment is going to start a conversation, the messageboard is only a click away.

Layout

Menu

We’ve modified the menu to work on all w3c compliant internet browsers, for those that don’t supprt the :hover ability we’ve a little bit of JavaScript, failing that the section links are at the top of the page and a navigation sidebar on the left.

Screen width

The last incarnation made a trade-off to improve the navigation on the site by having all pages listed, the downsite was reducing the width of the page for content. Now we have the full width of the page to use which will definitely improve reading on the forum and the new SSAGO News facility.

Usability

Almost all links on the website now have a ‘title’ attibute or tooltip, meaning when you hover over them it tells you want it does. Almost all images that aren’t structural have ‘alt’ or alternative text. Helpful for people that use screen headers.

Text size

For those that need the text a little bit bigger and use their browsers text increase facility you’ll be pleased to know that the site, menu and layout all scale legibally and usably to about 48pt or 400% so it about as easy to read as the default size (11pt).

Content

Information

We’ve added a lot of information about SSAGO in the ‘about’ section so those who want to learn more can visit there, for knowledgable members there is the random information page for integral pieces of info that are spread throughout all meetings minutes.

Club Directory

Despite being updated to the pinicle of data we have available I’ve also added a few bits to each clubs ‘profile’ such as a link their forum usergroup, sub-forum and a pip corrisponding to the same colour as the ones on the map.

The images have all been redrawn, they’re all stored as vector shapes so if anyone wants a 10 ft tall diagram just ask .

2007

Details on the celebrations for the 40th Year of SSAGO now have their own section, expect these page to be updated periodically.

Random Information

Sometimes if you’re just looking for a snipet of information it can be a hassle to trudge through all the minutes of meetings so hopefully this will be useful. The comments are set to open so you can suggest some extra information.

Explanations of SSAGO, Rallies & Balls

If you’ve not (yet) a member of SSAGO then the information here should be very useful and if you’ve never been to a Rally or Ball you should now have a better idea if fellow member hasn’t already told you.

SSAGO News Online!

Presumably for the first time articles for SSAGO News can be submitted on the website. The SSAGO News Section functions similarly to a blog, articles or posts are written by users and other people can comment on them. Articles can be trackbacked (more below) if someone wants to write on a similar subject elsewhere and there is a blogroll.

Articles

For the time being they are posted only in plain text or basic HTML there will be at a later date the ability to use BBcode.

Blogroll

Believe it or not there are members of SSAGO who are already bloggers, some advertise this fact obviously by having it as their website on the forum profile, others keep it quiet. Bringing fellow bloggers together helps you learn about each other and learn about Scouting and Guiding.

Any SSAGO member that has a blog can have their name added so that other SSAGO bloggers can find them. Email myself ( publicity -AT- ssago.org.uk ) and I’ll add you to the list.

Comments

These can be made on any posts made by SSAGO members, not a substitute for the forum but a way to offer kudos to writers.

Trackback & Pingbacks

You use trackbacks when you want to write more than just a comment based on or inspired by someone elses post and have an entire post on your own blog you can reference it using the posts trackback URL. This sends a signal to the original post saying that it has been referenced.
They are the equivalent of a tip of the hat to an author.

Pingbacks, similar to a trackback and a less common feature in webloging systems but more useful. A pingback requires that there to be a live incoming link rather than a acknowledgement. The term comes from submarines where they ‘ping’ other vessels and the echo returns to them, the ping is sent by the commenting post and returned by the original post. This makes spam pings much less common.
This is a lasting handshake between authors.