In its first year the TCS website grew from a handful of inanimate pages to an interactive system supporting on-line ticket sales, internet shopping, a members’ noticeboard and a permanent archive of society memorabilia. More importantly, it made a measurable contribution in each of its focus areas: attracting new members, marketing concerts / workshops and fundraising.

Development was a voyage of discovery: every page a personal first in terms of aesthetics, ergonomics and technology. Not surprisingly, there are inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement. What took shape in 2006 was a proof of concept; the goal for 2007 is a mature and robust asset.

The ‘first birthday survey’, conducted in December and January, marked the end of the beginning; with a year of experience it was reasonable to expect replies to two key questions: ‘what does the society need’ and ‘what do members want’. Julia and John will assess the results and other feedback in February; development is planned to start in March.

As all outgoings associated with the website were matched by hypothecated donations, there was no cost to the society.

The table on the right shows the commissions received by the on-line shop.

Sales have fallen off since Christmas ..... please keep using the shop (we keep adding merchants, the latest is M&S).

It is obvious from the survey that many members would like to see more photographs on the website. This can only happen if you submit them!

You can bookmark as many pages as you like in your browser. So if you find something useful you can bookmark it and return to it later (for example, the main news page or the shop).

The site map is an index of, and contains a link to, nearly every page. If you can’t find something, it’s worth looking in the site map (click ‘help’ on the main menu and then click ‘site map’).

The current version of the website has been designed for Internet Explorer (and tested on IE and Firefox). The next release will be designed for Firefox (but still tested on both). This decision has been taken to exploit Firefox’s support for industry standards and thereby ensure consistent results across hardware platforms and operating systems; its timing reflects the fact that over half of our users (by page count) have now made the change. Usage of browsers other than IE and Firefox remains below 2% of our traffic, justifying the ongoing decision to ignore them.

The photograph album (such as it is) will migrate completely to flickr in our next release. Now would be a good time to set up a user id.

The survey is now over but the feedback page is permanently ‘open’. Input is always welcome.