Welcome to the new website of the Rotary Club of Qualicum Beach Sunrise
The old website is at http://members.shaw.ca/qbsunrise. Maintained on the web space provided with my own personal Shaw account, the old site was done by hand. Although it has served its purpose over time, it was hard to edit, its look had become stale and it lacked many of the features a modern site should have. It had a very basic type of password protection which really amounted to security by obscurity. Although it had some useful content, it was limited by the fact that information only became content if I added it to the site. It amounted to a place where I could put information provided to me and those who came by could read it. It will stay where it is, so that its content will not be lost, but from this point new content will be on this site.
This new site is created using a content management system, (a "CMS"), called Drupal. Drupal is open source software. It allows us to use many site features that we have not had available. Check out the separate Features Help page for details. Once we become familiar with using these features (and I figure out how to set them all up!), the overall model of the web site will be quite different. Instead of being like a magazine (something you can only read and that has a delay between things happening and being reported) the new site will be more like a meeting place. It will be a place where we can discuss ideas and make plans (see Forums), where members can lead their own public discussions or editorialize (see Blogs). There will be a place that will work like a file cabinet that contains documents that are private records to be available for our members. The Scuttlebutt will be here, changed in form and content to some extent. It will still be something that the public can read, but members will be able to add comments to it that others will see.
These changes, and a raft of others, will make this site a community rather than a magazine. It will be what we as a group make of it.
This welcome message was last updated on April 7, 2007. The site is now running and all of our members have been sent a login/password for access to the site. The links at the bottom of this page will take you to content we have added to help you out. Have a look there and in the sub pages that follow and you will may find what you are looking for, or, Click Here to Get Help.
