Please Update Sunfish Home Page

T

THE COOKIE PIMP

New Member
To the powers that be PLEASE update the home page. I do not know about the rest of you but I need some time to plan my trips. I and some others my want to go to a few events. But need time to book reservations, get time off work and many other small details.
Some of these events will be starting in just a few months. I think?
 
I hope the Powers that Be listen, but this has been a problem since the Windward Leg was started. Before the net we waited till May befor finding out when May regatta where scheduled. LOL

The major problem the folks that do the listings is when the regatta folks send in their schedules. Seeing as how it's all volunteer labor it's hard to "demand" they keep up any schedule as the regatta listings come in. There are yearly "beggings" by the class scheduling folks about getting the request in early. In 30 years it hasn't happen yet. again LOL
 
Well that's the reason for my post. If your part of a club hosting an event ask your club to send it to the powers that be so it can be posted. You might get a few more participants. And as posted on this forum we wonder why we can not get 100+ sailors at major events. This is possibly just one of the many factors. I'm not Knocking any one. Just offering some friendly advice on marketing our fleet.
I have been asked where and when events were by others and could not tell them. I think the Int. Masters is at Davis Island not sure when? March or April. Mid winters are usually the next week. Melbourne I think ? N/A's no clue. Masters some where around Chicago July or August.
I'm not a good enough to be competitive at such events. But do enjoy watching the many vary talented sailors we have at them.
 
The 3 2006 regattas you mention - Intl Masters, Midwinters and Masters Nationals are in the 2005 schedule. Click on Part 2 of the class notice on the homepage. North Americans were recently scheduled for Texas. There are some postings with the dates for them further down the board. BB
 
Personally I think its time to upgrade the class website. Bishop has done a great job over the years, but it's getting a little stale.
The class site needs the following (in no order):

  1. A HTML (not word file or pdf) National Regatta Schedule page (with a list of all the regatta in the country. A database driven solution, like the calendar here on the forum would be best. It could have options to display in list or calenday format.
  2. A "Regions" page with information on all the regions, rep contact info, and link to the region site.
  3. Better site organization and a sitewide navigation system of some sort. This would include separate pages for news, regatta results, major regatta information, and so forth.
  4. Join the class online with Credit Card (The laser class has been quite successful with this, and their number of online CC renewels goes up every year and their paper work goes down.)
  5. Design: the site design is great for the dial-up era of the 1990's, but more and more people have High Speed Internet or at least enhanced dial-up. There is little wow factor with the current site. The sunfish is the most widely made sailboat in the world, we should have a website that reflects that. Much smaller classes have more intuitive and better looking websites than ours.
  6. Homepage: The home page should contain the latest news headlines with a few sentences of description underneath. These can then link to the full article, or if it is short, the whole article can be provided on the homepage. A list of upcomming regattas/events in the next X days should be displayed, along with other information, links, and the navigation bar.
I understand all website work is done by volunteer. Maintaining a class modern class website is not the task of one person. The site would probably be best run as a server side script (like this forum) that allows for several users to participate without needing FTP access or a web editor on their computer. An end user could submit a regatta report or news story in a similiar fashion to the posting of a new thread on this forum. It would then be sent to the moderator queue where one of several admin could go in and approve the post. There are thousands of free (and commercial) programs that provide this function. It takes several people devoted to the site along with site users participation by submitting news stories, regattas, results, pictures, etc.

Okay. I think I have rambled on enough. The goal here is not to hurt feelings or call the current site horrible, its just to point the class in the right direction for the future.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday!

Cheers,
 
Here are the dates you've been looking for...

MARCH, 2006
10-12 International Sunfish Master’s (W) - Davis Island YC; Tampa FL; Mike Dawson, 813-949-4840, [email protected].
2006 ISCA MEMBERSHIP CARD REQUIRED

16-19 Midwinter Championships (W) - Melbourne YC; Chris Gates, 321/727-7227, [email protected], www.sail-race.com.
2006 USSCA MEMBERSHIP CARD REQUIRED.

AUGUST, 2006
25-27 US Sunfish Masters Championship*(W) - Lake Bluff, IL
8/25-Arrival day. 8/26-27 Racing We will try to provide free housing for all sailors!
Rich Chapman 847-651-2112, [email protected]
2006 USSCA MEMBERSHIP CARD REQUIRED.
 
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