i wanted to let you know about some changes to the HBC Website that John Zeiss and I have done.

First, and foremost, the redistills for 2015 ride year through December are now available. So if you were one of the brave souls who rode during November or December, those stats are now available.

Second, there is a new feature of the web site that we hope you will like. If you look under the members menu item, you will see a page labeled “My Rides”. There are currently two tabs on this page, one for 2014 and one for 2015. The 2014 tab has a list of all your rides, the ride date and time, the distance and whether or not you were a rider or a leader. At the bottom of the page is a summary that says how many rides you did, your total miles and the total number of rides you led. If you rode in November or December, you will see similar information for the 2015 ride year. If, like me, you havent ridden yet, you will see a page that says “page not found”. Over time, John and I will be adding tabs for 2013 and 2012.

Third, we have implemented a forum feature for topics you may want to discuss with other members of the club. The forum is open to all members and located just under the Members menu item (right after the directory). The forum was always there, but we have made it easier to find and opened up the posting to everyone. We think the forum will be an ideal place to give a thumbs up to that club member who led a great ride, or stopped to help you fix the flat on last week’s ride. It would also be a good place to ask questions like “Does any one have a fat bike and what do they think of it?” There is a small checkbox at the top right that is labelled “Subscribe”. If you check it, you will get email updates when some one posts to the forum, so you will know there is something interesting there.

Lastly, we have also opened up the “news’ feature of the software so that team leaders and board members can post news to members of the club. If it right there under “News” on the main menu. Eventually, we would like to get away from these emails, and move towards posting this information as “news”. But the News feature could and should also be used by board members and team leaders to disperse information to the general membership. For example, it would be a great place for Mr. Dean to post the notices about the board meetings and the agenda. The main advantage of news over emails is that the news will persist and be available to members who join us after the email is sent. Members can comment on the news, but this really meant to be more of a one way communication vehicle, as opposed to the forum which is a place for more dialog. There is a small button in the upper right hand corner labeled ‘RSS’. If you click that button you will get updates when someone posts some news.

John and I hope you find all these changes useful. We have more updates coming in the next few weeks. In any case, we would like your feedback. If you have some feature that you think would really be useful, let us know and, if we agree, we will put it on the list.