As some of you may have noticed, the RPWBRA messageboard was unavailable
for a couple of days this week while it was being converted from a Yahoo!
Club to a Yahoo! Group.

This process is now, apparently, complete. Although you can still get to
the messageboard via the old address, it's better to use
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/raynesparkandwestbarnes/ ; I'll be
changing the destination of the link from the home page of our own website,
and making any necessary changes to the "About the messageboard" page, shortly.

I must say that at the moment it doesn't seem like a huge improvement, and
for some reason, HTML codes are showing up in some of the messages (e.g.
"<BR><BR>" where there should be a blank line - and I wonder how that's
going to look once it reaches the board !) ; peculiar and not very pretty.
I might be able to find a way to change that. It won't be too bad as long
as it doesn't happen to new messages as well.

However, a couple of new features which might be useful are the ability to
upload files of any type, not just pictures, to the board, and to post
messages via e-mail. I've already uploaded a couple of text files with job
descriptions for the Editor and Advertising Manager of the Association's
monthly newsletter, "The Guide" ; we're still trying to find one or more
volunteers to take over these jobs, so if you're interested, let us know,
if not, please ask your friends ! See
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/raynesparkandwestbarnes/files/Job%20description\
s/
.

As for sending messages via e-mail ; well, if you can see this, it's worked
... You do still have to be a registered member of the board, though (I
think it checks the "From" address on your e-mail against the address you
gave when you registered).

Please note that Yahoo! have warned that "Groups will be down for
maintenance Saturday, March 16, 12:00am GMT until late morning Sunday,
March 17." ; maybe they'll be making a few final improvements to the new
groups.

Meanwhile, I'll carry on experimenting with the settings and new features,
and hope they'll help us to get more from the messageboard.


Tim


P.S. This didn't work first time because "I had chosen not to disclose my
email address to the group". This means that you can only post messages via
the Web page. I've changed this temporarily (by unticking the "Email
address display" box on the "Edit my membership" page) ; it's up to each of
you whether you want to do the same, but I might change my settings back
later once I see what effect this has.

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