For the record - there was no need to change our website domain or hosting



From: Brett Davis

To: info@shoalhavenbushwalkers.com

Subject: For the record - there was no need to change our website domain or hosting

Date sent: March 27, 2025


Hi SBW committee,

I'd just like the committee to know that back in late 2023 there was no need for the club to get rid of the old website, or change the domain from shoalhavenbushwalkers.org.au to shoalhavenbushwalkers.com, or change the hosting company we were using to GoDaddy, or to spend additional money on hiring an alleged consultant to offer advice on what type of website we should have - which amazingly turned out to be exactly the same as the website design used by the consultant's business and totally wrong for the requirements of a large, community-based organisation like Shoalhaven Bushwalkers.

The Quality Host Online hosting package we were using at the time - and which we had been using for over 20 years - included two free Content Management Systems (CMS), both of which are better than the GoDaddy CMS (IMHO). A CMS is software that allows users to create, manage, and publish digital content, like websites and apps, without needing extensive coding knowledge.

The two CMS systems that were available with our package were Wordpress and Joomla! (the exclamation mark is part of their name).

Joomla! is a free and open-source CMS used for publishing web content, allowing users to create, manage, and publish websites and online applications. It's known for its flexibility, extensibility, and user-friendly interface, making it suitable for a wide range of websites, from personal blogs to complex corporate sites. Joomla is the second most used CMS in the world, after Wordpress, and is a popular choice for businesses, governments, and non-profits. Over 9% of all known business websites use Joomla.

WordPress is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) and blogging platform, used by over 43% of websites, that allows users to easily create, manage, and publish content without needing extensive coding knowledge. There are over 810 million WordPress websites, and as a result it has a massive amount of online training resources. The WordPress Directory currently offers around 60,000 free plugins and 12,000 free themes. It is the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world.

If we had stayed with our old hosting company there would have been no interruption to our email system either. We had ten email addresses available to us, and were using them for the President, the Treasurer, the Secretary, the Webmaster and the Ettremist Editor. The email system then was far better than the inefficient sharing of a single email address for the entire club - and some Gmail accounts- that we are forced to endure at the moment.

In addition, the old hosting package also included automatic email forwarding from a hosted email address to any other email address, as well as the use of mailing lists and autoresponders - the latter which would have been perfect for automatically letting people know that their email had been received and would be dealt with in due course - which hasn't been happening for the past few years. It also had free scripts available for forums, image galleries, wikis, blogs, calendars, and even e-commerce, should those additions to the website have been desired.

It was a pity that the committee was unaware of the capabilities and advantages of the system that it currently had back then; that it did not liaise with the departing Webmaster prior to making major changes to its website and domain name; and that it did not discover the capabilities and advantages of the system it already had - despite employing a consultant who should have provided them with that information during the decision-making process - all of which resulted in the club deciding on an inferior product.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot we can do about it now ...

Regards,
Brett







































This page shows one of the 35 suggestions to improve the club and its procedures sent by the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers webmaster to the SBW committee in 2025. The Shoalhaven Bushwalkers webmaster would have his membership cancelled for sending in these suggestions, although the real reason was probably because of two disputes he raised with the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers committee which they seemingly did not want to deal with. The cancellation of the webmaster's membership was arguably illegal under NSW law and could lead to the club being taken to court.




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