I'll use this first blog entry to talk about our new website, and provide some additional detail on how we got here and where we're headed next. But first, I want to thank our original webmasters for creating and maintaining the first website. It has served us very well for many years. Thank You Jeff and Bob!

Over time this website, like most things in life, must adapt, refine, update, upgrade, and/or improve. In fact, in an all too short amount of time the shiny new website you're seeing today will become completely obsolete and we'll rebuild it again. But that's tomorrow, let's focus on today.

My goals for updating our website are:

• Modernize and freshen — A new look and feel, consistent with other modern websites, that serves existing members as well as attracts new interest.
• Keep it simple — Let's not get complex just for the sake of being fancy.
• Secure — In a world of identify theft, spam, and schemes to defraud, let's do our best to protect member information.
• No additional cost — We're a non-profit organization after all. In particular, let's not add any new monthly or recurring expenses.
• Extensible — We've added features, and we'll add more in the future. So we need a platform that allows enhancement while continuing to meet the other goals.
• Responsive — In web design terms, this simply means the site will work on any device, including your phone or tablet.
• Delightful user experience — The most important goal: a pleasant experience for both members and visitors.

New Features

The motivation for this update came from a need to allow members to easily share information (without the webmaster having to alter or code up new web pages for every change). With that in mind, we will implement forums (like you might find at vansairforce.net or zenith.aero), blogs (like this one), and galleries (for sharing photos and videos). But before we can do that, we need to add a little security.

Ed.: March 2020 — We have removed the forums in favor of having a chapter Facebook page.

Our new website uses a database to keep track of members. This means each member has a unique username and password. After you log in you will have access to some pages that are not available to the general public. More importantly, by logging in the system can distinguish between your content (comments, posts, photos, etc.) and that of another user.

Now that we have a suitable foundation in place, these features and others will be added over time. Stay tuned for more information about updates. As always, please provide your feedback — suggestions, complaints, ideas — to the webmaster (me) or any of the officers. Or use the Contact Us page to send a note.

The old website will remain available as I transition content over to the new site. (You may see content disappear from the old site and appear in the new site.)

Ed.: Content has been transitioned to the new site. The old site is no longer available.

Thank you for your patience while we modernize. Cheers!

Build, fly, repeat…
—Alan Collins, EAA 1373 Webmaster