Some Previous NBTHA Information Technology Work

Previously linked here was an archived image of the nbtha.org website as it was in late April 2012. At that time the then-existing Board asked me to stop maintenance as they "decided to move ahead in other directions." As a result I immediately removed my name from various parts of the website, e.g., as Chair of the IT Committee, and turned in my update authorization for the website, as they had requested. Other NBTHA people created an nbtha.org replacement; here is their current implementation.

The archived website image was a working version, containing all the files that were on the nbtha.org website as of around 4/23/12 except for the Newsletters TOC page described below. Note that the "Search in nbtha.org" facility in the lower left corner of the home page menu column would not function exactly as it had previously since it would still try to search using the nbtha.org search index. However that index would eventually disappear from the nbtha.org RoutHost server when the old nbtha.org account was deleted. To compensate, I pointed the search to a different index; as a result the search would find what it would have found before plus a few other items.

Background:  In September 2011 I gave the NBTHA Board of Directors four months notice that as of January 2012 I would resign from doing NBTHA's Information Technology work (website, Office PCs, annual meeting packet, election organization, etc.) The main reason was the often inaccurate and usually late input they and others provided for the Newsletter and website, as well as for financial planning and other documents. The Board and NBTHA Officers provided little (or often negative) backing whenever I asked that these long-standing problems be corrected.

For the remainder of 2011 I did my normal NBTHA website and PC work, including the creation/mailing of the NBTHA 2011 annual meeting packet and the creation/distribution of the 2012 NBTHA Directory and Guidelines booklet. I also continued to act as the effective NBTHA Secretary (primarily writing Board minutes) as I had for a good part of a year because each of the three previous official Secretaries had resigned. In the IT Committee section of the website I published detailed turnover documentation for all the IT jobs I had done over the previous seven years and offered to train replacement people. As it turned out, the training efforts were then blocked by some of the Board members. Because no replacement people were put in place, I continued doing website and Office PC support until late April 2012 when the NBTHA Board asked me to stop, as described above.

In January 2012 the Board decided to delay publishing the online NBTHA Newsletter and I was asked to replace the previous Newsletters TOC web page with this; then they subsequently decided not to put future Newsletters on the website at all. I had objected to that direction for the following reasons. Up to then the Newsletter online version had been used as the source to print the delivered hardcopy version. Before printing all the hardcopies for delivery each month, the current online draft was available for all to see as the Newsletter was being developed over several weeks; that way additions/corrections could be suggested by anyone before the final online draft was frozen and used to print the hardcopy used for reproduction. Also, because it was online, the monthly Newsletter was available to anyone, including NBTHA homeowners who did not happen to live in North Bend. The Newsletters were automatically archived on the website, with all copies back to 2006 readily available to anyone with a browser. Because all the past Newsletters were online, they could be easily searched using the search tool provided on the website. Any person could reprint any selected issue. Also, any web page could easily link to a current or past Newsletter article. None of these facilities were available with the procedures the Board adopted in January 2012.

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