Web Site Usage

WEB PAGE www.fbyc.net

Fishing Bay Yacht Club’s web site is designed to help us manage and promote the club and its events. We now have an online method of issuing Member Passwords and on-line Event Registration for both Members and non-members. Most events in 2005 will use the registration system, which will keep track of head counts for events and securely collects payments for those events with fees or items sold.

We encourage all members to apply for Members Only passwords, which enables them to register for events and use the Members Only section of the site. Web pages are revealed based on the permissions levels of the User, be it None, Member, Board, Flag, Results Manager, Web Manager, or Guest.

Public Pages - The home page shows primary navigation links and news Articles. The top of the home page displays links to recent results and pictures. The left sidebar lists the next few events with links to the SI’s, Sign Up! and the lists of participants. It also has links to Scuttlebutt, weather, and Web Site Tools such as posting news stories (click Post News Article ) or search stories (click Search News). The older news articles push down and off the page as new items are posted. We occasionally edit or delete postings.

Members Only - only visible to Members who have been issued Passwords. This helps protect the identity of our members, yet makes our member database, an on-line version of the Year Book, available to all members. We also encourage visiting the (click Mailing Lists Page) and subscribing to the mailing lists that interest each member.

Board Only – reveals to Board Members, Flag Officers, etc. prior Meeting Minutes, Treasurers Reports, Sailing Events and Year Book drafts, and Annual Reports of prior officers and committees.

If you click on Go to Members Only Section you can log into the website, sign up for a Password, or request a forgotten Password. In signing up, you will be asked to fill out a form and to select your own User Name and Password. You may also select an e-mail alias at the @fbyc.net domain. Mail sent to youralias@fbyc.net will be forwarded to your real e-mail address. Your signup application is sent to Mary Spencer who compares it to your data on record, and usually sends an acceptance promptly.

Once you receive your User Name and Password, revisit Go to Members Only Section, and log in using your User Name and Password. The web site is very sensitive to upper and lower case letters. You must use the correct case for User Names, Passwords and URLs. If you are on your own computer, select the Remember my Name and Password, and presto, whenever you revisit www.fbyc.net, you will immediately notice that the top right hand corner of the web page indicates you are Logged In.

Click on your name in the top right corner and you can update some of your contact information, and Mary will be notified. If you are on a public computer, please Log Out when you leave the computer.

To register for an event, click on the Sign Up! Link. If not logged in, it will force you to log in, or alternatively, to apply for a Password, either as a Member or a Non-Member Registrant for an event. Once you see the Entry Form, you will notice different events require different submissions, depending on the type of event. The entry form is supposed to remember the last data you entered, which eases pressure on the mind, but it forgets if the server has rebooted. If you fail to enter required data or the format is wrong, the page will point out your errors and ask for resubmissions. When the Entry Form is successfully submitted, a confirming email will be sent to you, with a copy to those who are running the event, except for those few events with a fee…

In which case, you will be asked to select items to purchase. Sometimes, an item is "required" – like an entry fee; other items are optional. You are offered a chance to adjust the quantities before you are taken to the payment page, where we accept Visa or Master Card – but not American Express. Finally, after successful processing and payment, you will receive the confirming email. No email, never completed – probably registered, but left unpaid. FBYC never sees your credit card numbers; they are processed by First Market Bank’s vendor.

Once registered for an Event, the Sign Up! Link converts to Registered , and an additional registration by you is impossible. You can also click See List to review those registered. The event managers can see a more detailed list showing all Entry Details and/or Items purchased, (included purchased but unpaid!) which should also be available at the Event for followup or questions.

All officers in the sailing divisions and others are empowered to manage the online schedule and post results. Any one of about 5-10 people (Randy Alley, Strother Scott, Mary Spencer, Jon Deutsch and Mark Wensell) can change anything on our web site. We welcome contributions from anyone interested.

The site is hosted at the new www.baymountain.com data center in Richmond, VA. All the site software is open source. Zope from www.zope.org powers the site. The home page news-posting feature is from www.squishdot.org. The member database is managed by the Executive Secretary using Microsoft Access, which connects to and updates the online PostgreSQL database, which also handles the events and the event registration data independently.