Exploiting the blog

There are about 800 news articles on the website, dating back to 1984. Up to 150 more are expected each year. These includes notices, meeting reports, competition results, etc. In addition, there are perhaps 50 notable changes made to this website each year. These include new photograph galleries, new tutorials, revised rules and guidelines for competitions, etc. The blog is a "one stop shop" for viewers who want to examine these news and website updates all from one place.

Viewing schedule

Some members look at the blog nearly every day. Others don't use it at all. Here is a tested suggestion:

At least every weekend, look at the blog to catch up with news and updates of the last week.
Then look at the Diary to prepare for the next week.

There is evidence to support this schedule, at least during the season. The statistics page shows that there are typically a few extra entries in the blog each week, but not too many to be read at a sitting. (The average is between 4 and 5). Only on special weeks such as Christmas and New Year are there no changes. It has been rare for changes to reach double-figures in a week, and latest publishing guidelines mean that this will be even less likely now.

It is possible that viewing once a month will be adequate for many people out of season. The blog looks backward (and the Diary looks forward) about one month.

Contributing

Assume that a significant proportion of members view the blog at least once per week. Therefore, material with a useful life of at least a week, for example an announcement made one Tuesday about something to be done by the next Tuesday, is worth publishing in the blog.

All material should be supplied to the webmaster, typically by email, preferably according to the following guidelines:

Features

Entries in the blog

Entries are published in reverse-chronological order (typical of blogs). So the general principle is: "read downwards from the top of the page, and stop when you see an entry you've read before".

Here is an example of a news entry in the blog. See the top entry in the blog archive for March 2009:

As usual on this website, "blue underlined text" is a link. Such a header for a news entry (such as "Wild Birds in Flight" above) is a Permalink - a permanent link that should be used if a link to this news entry is needed. (Links should not normally be made to the blog itself, because entries disappear from it after a month).

Archives

News entries are also published independently, as separate web pages linked to from the archives for the relevant news category. These archives are based on a system that pre-dated the blog, so they link to news articles going back years.

The blog itself is copied at the end of each calendar month, and these copies form the blog archives.

Living without the blog

With few exceptions, the blog publishes copies of material published elsewhere on the website. It is rarely the sole and/or original repository. That original material elsewhere can be viewed directly rather than via the copies of it in the blog - the blog is an optional extra.

All news entries published in the blog are also published as separate web pages, indexed (in reverse chronological order) by the news category archives. These are at:

Nearly all other entries published in the blog identify updates to the following pages, which often contain publication dates: