Best club and commercial web sites

Which clubs and commercial operations have outstanding web sites that
make people eager to give soaring a try? Out of date sites with
pictures that don’t include recent improvements and photographs that
are obviously from another decade can’t help us recruit members.
Great web sites can. Please give us some inspiration.

On Sep 11, 6:01*pm, Vsoars wrote:
Which clubs and commercial operations have outstanding web sites that
make people eager to give soaring a try? *Out of date sites with
pictures that don’t include recent improvements and *photographs that
are obviously from another decade can’t help us recruit members.
Great web sites can. *Please give us some inspiration.

My club's site falls into the not so inspiring category, so I will
nominate one from an op that has a goodn to get it started:
http://www.crosscountrysoaring.com/index.html Good thread topic!

-Paul

My attempt is www.whisperingwings.org.za

It generates a lot of traffic, has 34 back links (good measure of success) and keeps people informed.
Alexa page rank is 3 - also a good measure.

That said it is now two years old and about to get a heart transplant.

Unfortunately the "new" ships in the fleet are a 37 year old Kestrel T59D (19m Slingsby built version) and a 38 year old
Std Cirrus. Last decade is nothing on the trainers, 1956 and 1964 - still going strong but not very sexy.

Bruce

sisu1a wrote:
On Sep 11, 6:01 pm, Vsoars wrote:
Which clubs and commercial operations have outstanding web sites that
make people eager to give soaring a try? Out of date sites with
pictures that don’t include recent improvements and photographs that
are obviously from another decade can’t help us recruit members.
Great web sites can. Please give us some inspiration.

My club's site falls into the not so inspiring category, so I will
nominate one from an op that has a goodn to get it started:
http://www.crosscountrysoaring.com/index.html Good thread topic!

-Paul

http://www.soarccsc.com/index.shtml

I believe PGC's website is pretty good, thanks to my partner's
efforts, KK.

http://www.pgcsoaring.org/Index.html


Chip Fitzpatrick

On Sep 12, 8:24*am, chipsoars wrote:
I believe PGC's website is pretty good, thanks to my partner's
efforts, KK.

http://www.pgcsoaring.org/Index.html

Chip Fitzpatrick

I support the website for our club and understand from our membership
chair that it is often mentioned as the reason people decided to
join ... or just come out for a ride.

We use a lot of visual content on the site - the club header is
farcical of course, but a nice visual hook for surfers ... and the
main page lets people see flight ops from two web cams. I also use
tons of recent photos on the site ... we have a number of good photogs
in the club who are sending photos of every event. I actually edit
every photo (sharpness, color balance, contrast and composition) and
select the few best in the set to maintain consistent image quality
levels - i.e. people will soon get bored by an endless stream of
'snapshots'. All of the photos I select show 'smiling happy
people' ... after all, the soaring community is a happy family, isn't
it?

In addition to a lot of individual photos - captioned with snappy and
sometimes irreverent comments if I have the time ... we have a few
nice photo montages ... a couple of members have created some very
good movies ... and we have the web cams as mentioned - so again, a
lot of visual content.

I have the full Macromedia suite and will probably build some flash/
fireworks features this winter ...

Ken Kochanski
PGC Webmaster
http://www.pgcsoaring.org/Index.html

At 01:01 12 September 2008, Vsoars wrote:
Which clubs and commercial operations have outstanding web sites that
make people eager to give soaring a try? Out of date sites with
pictures that don=92t include recent improvements and photographs that
are obviously from another decade can=92t help us recruit members.
Great web sites can. Please give us some inspiration.
Take a look at:
www.sosaglidingclub.com
John B.

www.asa-soaring.org

The Arizona Soaring Association site is, beyond a doubt, the best club
soaring site out there. It was originally crafted from the ground up
by member Nigel Cripps and is now in the able hands of member Ted
Wagner. The site has numerous cool features including a great chat
area. The pictures on the home page are changed every month or two to
keep it interesting. We have some distant club members who regularly
pay annual dues to the club just for the right to fully access our
discussion forum -- which at times becomes quite lively. Our website,
more than anything else, has kept ASA together through trying times
over the last few years.

Steve Koerner
www.wingrigger.com

You didn't give an address:

http://www.asa-soaring.org/

Lots of good info, but could be improved with lots of big pictures; I'd
vote for the SOSA page on that account.

It appears to me that the ASA page is directed more towards members (not
quite a blog), and the SOSA page is directed more towards the public as
advertisment.

At 16:28 12 September 2008, Steve Koerner wrote:
www.asa-soaring.org

The Arizona Soaring Association site is, beyond a doubt, the best club
soaring site out there. It was originally crafted from the ground up
by member Nigel Cripps and is now in the able hands of member Ted
Wagner. The site has numerous cool features including a great chat
area. The pictures on the home page are changed every month or two to
keep it interesting. We have some distant club members who regularly
pay annual dues to the club just for the right to fully access our
discussion forum -- which at times becomes quite lively. Our website,
more than anything else, has kept ASA together through trying times
over the last few years.

Steve Koerner
www.wingrigger.com

Skyline Soaring CLub in Virginia www.skylinesoaring.org is right up
there, and while it's attractive to newbies, it's primary focus is
meeting members' interests and needs. It's actually more than a club
website, since the Club owns/manages the server which, in turn hosts a
whole bunch of Club goodies, e.g.:

1. The website itself, with several layers of highly secure limited
access section (e.g., for instructors, members, Directors, etc.)
2. Automatically records all the Club's operational and financial
records, updats them electronically from a laptop at the field after
each operating day. Then provides huge database for mining for
management information.
3. Houses a sophisticated instructional progress tracking system
(available through the secured "Instructors" section of the "Members
Only" website.
4. Repository for Club documents
5. Distribution system for the newsletter "Skylines".