2018 AOA Website – introduction

Welcome to the new 2018 AOA Website which replaces the old ‘Ning’ site.

Our new website is still work in progress. We are in the process of loading AOA records and there are lots of things to add and bits that may not work as well as we hoped. (The current ‘job list’ is documented on this page and will be updated as we fix things and you make request for additions and changes.)

If you have previously logged in to our old ‘Ning Site’ use the Login link (top right) with your old user name (the one you used in the Ning site) and select the ‘Lost Password‘ option to reset your password for the new site.

Why move from Ning?

Some of the hoped for benefits of the new site are:

• Increased value to members by making the AOA archive available – boat histories, bulletins, technical papers, history, newsletters, photographs
• Improved showcase for the Fairey Marine Yachts, driving more interest and involvement
• Improved capabilities to curate content and contributions
• Allow non-members to contribute to the discussions about the yachts

The new site works differently to the old Ning site. Some aspects are better, one or two are not quite so good. But you are the best judges of this and we welcome feedback using this form.

The major differences are:

• • Removed the ‘Social Media’ aspects of Ning (personal blogs, statuses, ‘Friends’ etc)
  • Changed (simplified?) the structure for where you create posts and forum entries
    • Each boat now has its own ‘Blog’ to which multiple people can post narratives and photos.  These boat pages also show all of the AOA records for that boat.
    • The Boat Blogs should be used for all material specific to one boat which forms part of the history others would be interested to see
    • The Forums still exist, much as before, for queries and discussions amongst members and the public
  • Introduction of new ‘Archive‘ and ‘Boat Register‘ areas enabling the extensive previously paper records of the AOA to be shared simply with all members
  • Increased focus on selling the peculiarities, qualities and benefits of the designs to drive interest in the classes

The site has much more content than the Ning site

The site content is structured around the following areas:

The designs – Fairey Marine Atalanta 26, 31, Fulmar, Titania and Fisherman
The boats – registers and individual boat histories including ‘Boat Blogs’ which everyone can contribute to
The archive – bulletins, papers, drawings and much more, all available online
Forums – seek and give advice on sailing and maintaining the boats, advertise gear for sale and wanted etc.

See the About page to learn more about the site.

A lot of the site is available to the public but details of the boat registers, the AOA archive and some aspects of the Forums are restricted to AOA members. Read about the different access levels here.

All content from the Ning site has been moved

The Ning information has been restructured to match the new site. Wherever a Ning Blog Post, Forum entry of photograph was detailing a particular boat the items have been consolidated onto the relevant Boat Page. Blog posts, photographs or forum entries which are more general have been moved to the relevant Forum.
You can see what of yours has been transferred by looking at Your Profile page (on the right).

There are some issues in the transfer

Transferring the wealth of information in the old site was felt to be paramount. Unfortunately however the old and new sites are based on different technologies which work quite differently. Therefore the transfer has introduced some minor irritations:

• Items are not necessarily were they were – see comments above about the increased focus on boat pages
• Some photographs are duplicated. The Ning site used multiple copies of each photograph. Many duplicates were removed in the transfer but some remain.
• Avatars (your photos) have not been migrated with your user records – use the ‘Your Profile’ link top right to upload a new one
• We have all got to get to grips with the new set up – don’t hesitate to raise queries and suggestions!

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Please note the updated Privacy Policy and website Terms and Conditions.

How to contribute

Offers of help to create material, update boat register details and so on are welcome, and you will find forms to do this throughout the site.   We actively seek contributions through the ‘Contribute’ page, or if you prefer contact the webmaster using the contact form.