What's there now

One of my main goals was to get the old versions of the Draught Notice, the paper newsletter your reading now, up on the web as a resource. Many hours have gone into publishing this newsletter and its a great resource. As of the writing of this article, I have August 1995 to October 1997 published under Ken Koupal editorship and Jan 1994-Feb 1994 under Bryan Gros term as editor. Many of the articles don’t have the same look and feel as the rest of the webpage but I wanted to get the content up as soon as possible. Over time I will convert the articles with more navigation elements built in and hopefully hyperlinks set up through out.

In order for people to better find things on our website, I’ve built a simple text search engine into all of the screens. The limitation is that it searches all of my domain including my own personal web page but it couldn’t be helped. It is my hope that brewers will come to our page to conduct web research once the content becomes sufficient.

I’ve also built in a recipe database. At the moment, it only simple html’d documents I’ve dug up from old Draught Notices to get something online. I hope to build the database up so that people searching for recipes will find our page. I’m also going to try and get the recipe listed under the Cats Meow 3, the beer recipe database on realbeer.com with specific conditions that the recipes have a link to our webpage and or course the author’s name.

I’ve also developed a section dedicated to Special Activities. Currently, I’ve listed most of 1997 activities with a brief description and incorporated a slide show script so people can see what the event looked like. When I get a chance, I’ll also link the activity to the Draught Notice article so people can read more about it. The whole section is to get new members to see what we do for fun and keep an archive of the event for members to see. It will also give detailed information on upcoming events so the current and prospective members keep there calendars updated.

Of course, there a calendar section to the webpage as well. I’ve tried to put as much of the basic information as possible such as meeting times, meeting places, round table discussion topics, upcoming events like competitions, and the beer style of the month. Even though its pretty basic now, I hope to split it up by year and have links from the old activities to the slides shows and articles about the event. Currently, for all competitions, I’ve got a separate link that describes the deadlines, event guidelines, addresses and contact names and numbers to make it easier for members to get their brews ready for competition. In order to make it work though, I’m going to need a more complete list of eligible events… any volunteers?

One of the most important sections is the new members page. Its here we spell out why people should join us, where to meet us and what it costs. Its currently pretty basic but I think gets the facts across. I’m looking for ideas here and hope to get it fine tuned but am short on specific ideas.

In order to get feedback from visitors of the site, I’ve built a simple form so that they can type in what they think of our page. Its has a simple survey that asks if they’re a member, want to become one, are a brewer or links to tinker. I’ve also got the basic of who they are where they come from and email address. Feedback is the key to fine tuning the page and this is the standard way to get it.

I’ve also converted a few of the elements from our old page over. Bob Jones page about "Who we are" give basic background information about the club, it purpose and direction. I’ve also kept the "Garage Sale" area so that people trying to sell or trade equipment have a way to do it.

I’ve built a three page section dedicated to outside links. These ages are divided into "BJCP" resources, California Brew Clubs on the web, Homebreweries, and Miscellaneous links. I’ve pondered the importance of putting competitive clubs on our web page and decided that there isn’t that much of a risk. People are going to seek out the club that is either geographically desirable, fits into their schedule or looks the best. I hope to foster an air of cooperation with neighboring clubs because it benefits us all. I’m hoping to increase the links section by topic as I think them up or people tell me they want them. Ideas of new sections and links are most welcome.

Once the majority of the content was up, I invested some time in registering the page with the major search engines around. The nice thing about developing lots of content (almost 300 pages html worth) is that you can post it and when somebody searches for something, your site has a high chance of being listed. In particular, I’ve listed the pages with: INFOSEEK, ALTA VISTA, YAHOO. If there’s a favorite search engine you use, tell me and I’ll get the pages updated. The main idea is to get as much exposure as possible.

I’ve also invested time in getting people who list brew club web pages to either update or list tour site. Some of them haven’t responded to me because there’s nobody there to update it. Its unfortunate but true that resources on the net get dust after not being updated regularly. I will keep bugging these people to update there links. Others have been very nice to update there links so that our page is listed correctly. Bob Jones has been kind to help out by placing a link from the old page to the new page under considerable problems and it is greatly appreciated.