Oi!
You leave my 503s alone boogerlugs.
They appear to be mine…all mine…so it seems.
I’m getting excited. I’ve got 404 and 503. I’m just waiting on one number for a line.
Bingo!
May I suggest a polite e-mail to the Club Chairman Ted McKay, explaining your concerns in constructive fashion, ahead of this Saturday’s National Committee Meeting?
It doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, a rant but just a brief outline of the problems you face, an expression of concern for the online future of the OC, and a request for immediate action and/or a direct statement with concrete plans for the future.
Ted’s address, like those of all National Committee members, is on page 5 of STHT.
I’ve sent one, because as much as people complain on here it’s not a particularly effective way of bringing the importance and urgency of the situation to the awareness of the National Committee.
Regards,
Karl
Surely complaining on here ought to be the perfect way most members can bring the importance and urgency of the situation to the awareness of the National Committee !
This situation has been going on for far too long, and it’s about time the National Committee agreed on a plan of action.
I set up a forum in 2008, with a similar number of boards to this one, and had it running in about 2 hours. It now has 5000 members and is almost completely reliable. We use 1and1 for hosting and I think we pay about £50/month for a dedicated server (I don’t do the finances - we split up responsibilities as the admin of a previous incarnation went rogue).
We use SMF forum software. It’s not perfect but it does the job and is free.
I also know a very, very good web developer/admin who fixes all the problems.
Totally agree. While I realise that the commitee members are volunteers, and I thank them for it, if amongst them nobody is aware of the problems then something is wrong. The commitee should monitor between them all aspects of the club. It is very rare that issues with the speed and operation of the forum are not on the short list of active discussions.
If even one member of the commitee were to attempt to access the forum once per week they would know how the rest of us are finding it. Surely they know already. Filling the Chairman’s inbox with complaints however nicely worded can’t be helpful. We have been told this will be raised at tomorrow’s meeting. As long as they are told that A LOT of people are VERY unhappy that should surfice.
How about a vote thread, Happy? or Unhappy?
To be honest I think at this juncture I think the committee is aware of the issues.
Offers of help are appreciated - Gary or Ted are the best people to speak to about that 
Whilst acknowledging the great work that the volunteers do, without a doubt, the forum is currently the worst it’s been since I became a member in November 2016. There’s numerous examples of double, triple and more postings and I now often get 503 error messages as well as the 404s.
I consider myself to be a patient man, but even I don’t want to sit and stare at a screen not really knowing whether anything is going to happen or not!
Paul
Definitely worse now, I can’t rely on anything posting now, let’s hope this does
And one other thing noticeable, i have problems posting using my phone on here, it’s just not user friendly. Any other forum I use its phone friendly on here it seems to screw up the text I type, I’m constantly correcting it.
Well if they’re yours Rob please keep them under control, the little pests completely locked me out yesterday evening for something like 6 hours!
You make the presumption that most of the committee use the forum… They all read their e-mails though.
I’m not even directly involved anymore and my inbox is full of OC e-mails regarding the issue…I can assure you, and everyone else, that there is an acknowledgement that something has to be done and very soon and an eagerness to get it done. As Mal says there is a NC meeting this weekend and the forum, website, membership portal, social media etc. are all high on the agenda. Although I have no authority to expect anything from the NC I have requested a response/statement from them early next week to tell members what is going to happen. Hopefully we’ll get that.
As is the case with many large, volunteer led organisations there is huge inertia at times, but things are happening. Promise!
Karl
Karl - even if the committee members do not actually use the forum as such, surely they must monitor it. I find it difficult to believe that those high up the OC food chain, would not know what was going on at ground level !
Paul if you want to find out the cost of anything to do with the club please come to the AGM and ask the questions. Our money man will be doing his presentation where all can see where every penny is going. You are not that far from Kegworth so the invite is there.
Chris, it has taken me over 7 minutes to answer your post, as a NC member I am well aware of the forum problems. I have used the forum since I joined the OC. now up to 6761 posts.
As I said on the post the other day THE MATER IS UP FOR REVIEW AT TOMORROWS NCM.
Thanks, I might well do so, if I’m not working down route and away from home - as I often am. Where in Kegworth is the AGM held?
However, if I can’t make it, hopefully the club’s financial balance sheet will be made freely available to club members after the meeting.
Edit: I’ve just found these figures on the website:
Website expenses (2014) £7,554 (2013) £7,395. I sincerely hope we aren’t paying anything like this amount for what we see here. Unless I’m missing some thing very obvious, we are being totally ripped off! I find it rather surprising that more recent accounts (i.e. for 2015 and 2016) haven’t been published in the same way - we seem to be missing two years’ worth.
As one of the first to post above, as one of the Club committee, and as one of those who gets frustrated by the forum’s failings please be advised that those that need to know are well aware of the situation… Its bugging some of us as Club members and as Club committee members as much it is you, in fact probably more so!
But we are as mere mortals, and with the best will in the world we can all sit around a table and agree to do something, but it still takes people to do that something, and the Clubs online infrastructure, this forum and all that back it up is complicated, and a time consuming enterprise to support, and to alter and to update, voluntarily or professionally.
Ramsay has been working tirelessly again to give it another fix, that seems to have worked now, but its only going to be temporary.
yes, you are missing the very obvious. This forum is only a small part of the club online presence. The entire membership system, the website front end, the club email system, Club shop, online support, back up, licences, server hosting costs, domain registrations, etc etc etc. All contained within that. Looks like a bargain to me, £1.00 per Club member a year…!
The forum may very well be only a small part of the club’s on-line presence, but to the vast majority of ordinary members, it is probably the first port of call for any contact, and arguably the most important.
OK, I’ve had enough of contributing to this thread, and anyway Mal Jones is beginning to shout at me (capital letters in his post !).
Good luck gentlemen !
yes, no one is disputing the forum significance, I was just clarifying the incorrect assumptions regarding cost. So I’ll do that now regarding the way members communicate with the Club. The forum is important, but its only one option for communication, so I suspect its far from the first port of call for the vast number of ordinary members these days. In my experience as an AC and active member people will use email, telephone or text, check facebook pages or Twitter, check the main website events section or area websites, or go to a monthly or other Club meet, they may read the Area newsletter, or read STHT all means to communicate with the the rest of the Club, all systems the Club and its ACs use to keep members informed.
To emphasise this is not an us and them situation, its not the “committee” versus the membership, we are all fed up with this forum’s hopeless performance recently, its affecting all of us, me and Mal both committee members, both trying to use it and find we can’t, we all want to see it work better or be replaced by something new.