First some practical matters - initial adjustments to fully benefit from the new design:

Bookmarks Apart from the main website URL (www.tyndale-choral-society.org), every page has a new address, so please take a moment to update your bookmarks.

Browser The website should continue to work perfectly well with Internet Explorer but it has been designed to exploit Mozilla Firefox. For more information about this, and a link to help you download a free copy of the browser, visit the help page.

Documents Where possible the use of ‘pdf’ files is being reduced in favour of standard ‘html’ pages. This is being done to reduce response times for users with ‘dial up’ connections. Major documents, however, such as the Newsletter can only be presented in ‘pdf’ form as layout and structure are of their essence. For these, the recommended reader is now Adobe Reader version 8. For more information about this, and a link to help you download a free copy of the reader, visit the help page.

This is an example of a ‘new style’ document; in the old version All change! would have been presented as a ‘pdf’ file.

Photographs The on-site photograph album has been replaced by flickr. Please read the separate document getting started with flickr.

Nearly all the changes have been prompted by survey input or other suggestions; added together they have led to an entirely new interface:

More pictures less words No longer is it enough for the website to be just an information source ... it should be visually attractive. A start has been made, further progress is heavily dependant on contributions from you.

Clearer pages The light grey background pattern of TCS logos has gone. The unnecessary graphic buttons have gone. It's almost utilitarian!

Intuitive navigation From your feedback it is clear that navigation was a problem in the old version. To improve matters, the main menu topics (the buttons across the top of each page) have been rethought and, in some cases, renamed. Ultimately, it has to be accepted that everybody thinks differently; an obvious structure to one person may be a maze to another. Let me suggest:

Look around - when you have a spare few minutes just browse.

Bookmark key pages - for each person these will be different but a starting point might be: the main news page the calendar the shop.

Use the site map; it lists everything in the website. You can link directly to all items with a solid disc; items with an empty circle are available only when you get to the ‘parent’ page.

All the information and function in the original website remains in this new version. It may look different or be in a different place but it’s all here.

TCS concerts and choral workshops can be found under ‘concerts’ on the main menu. For some events, further details are available: try clicking the event title (you will get more information if there is any and stay on the same page if there isn’t). As an event approaches, the on-line box office becomes available. Try it out now - look at the details for the Fauré workshop and book your place!

About Us is a rework of the old ‘Join Us’ page. Most of the words are the same but the hope is that the new, brighter visually attractive page is more in tune with who we are. Younger visitors can discover our apprenticeship scheme and all can easily make direct contact with the appropriate committee member.

News. If you only have time to look at one page, it should be the main ‘news’ page. Everything important that is happening in the next few weeks is here. Most new additions to the website make a brief appearance in ‘news’ before being consigned to their permanent location.

What’s on - a complete listing of all planned events can be found under ‘calendar’. This already extends to the end of the year.

The library remains. In part it is a reference library, in part a historical archive and in part a source of information about current events. To improve usability, an attempt has been made to sort out the classification of documents:

recent additions - all new documents make a brief appearance in this section (in addition to their permanent home)

reference material - answers question like: ‘who is on the committee’, ‘what are the rules of the society’

newsletters - ‘pdf’ versions of our printed newsletters

concert programmes- ‘pdf’ versions of old concert programmes (this archive currently goes back to 2001 - if you have any older programmes that could be scanned and thereby shared, please contact the website administrator)

from the papers - critiques of concerts and other press coverage

posters - old concert posters (this archive currently goes back to 2004 - if you have any older posters that could be scanned and thereby shared, please contact the website administrator)

general meetings - minutes of TCS general meetings (and the agenda of any imminent meeting)

committee meetings - minutes of TCS committee meetings (and the agenda of any imminent meeting) - although these documents are locked, members can get the password from any committee member

website - documents about the website itself

miscellaneous - the place for things that don’t fit elsewhere!

The Shop gets better and better with two new additions, M&S and John Lewis. Using the shop regularly raises funds for the society (and enables this website to be a profit centre rather than a cost).

The Noticeboard can be found from the ‘news’ page and continues to provide a forum for each member to get his or her thoughts, adverts and messages displayed. The facility is fully interactive, you drive it.

Concerts in the Cotswolds lists events from local societies that you might like to attend. If you are a member of another choral society, and their concerts are not yet included, perhaps you might like to suggest it.

Contact Us is an expanded version of the old ‘feedback’ page; it now allows visitors to select which committee member they wish to contact.