Two substantial new developments in the functionality of the GOC website are now live. Both appear in the My GOC section, so you will probably notice them soon if you haven't already. They are both designed to help to make the website and the club more social - a place to connect with other members and make friends, as well as to enjoy outdoor activities with each other.
The first is a newly expanded member profile page. Earlier in the year you may have noticed that your Account in My GOC was expanded to invite you to share more about yourself, and to choose what to share with all members, with only your Friends or with no-one but the GOC Committee. Now your Profile page has been expanded with a new, variable design to show what you have opted to share, with whom you have opted to share it.
You can view your own profile page by clicking on the View Profile link at the bottom of the About me form in your Account. Do take a look, and update and complete your profile and account settings as you wish, there and in My Groups, My Roles and Account Settings.
Sharing more about yourself with friends and other members can help you and them to better make connections and build friendships. Even if you choose to share more about yourself only with the GOC Committee, that will help us to better know our members and serve you better. As before, you can opt to share as much or as little as you wish.
The second development is a new system of website discussion forums, to enable you to use the website to initiate and join conversations with other members. You can find these under Your Forums in My GOC. We hope that members will use these in preference to taking their conversations to WhatsApp, or other channels outside the website - so as not to exclude those who are not aware of them, or who are not ready to share their mobile number or email address or download and learn another app, and so that the club can support members to use them well.
Group Co-ordinators and Event Leaders can now opt to add a discussion forum to their Groups and Events, enabling Group members and Event attendees to initiate and join threaded conversations with each other on any Topic of their choosing. If you find a Group or Event does not yet have a discussion forum available, you can message the Group Co-ordinator or Event Leader via the Group or Event page to suggest it. The existing comment function on event pages can still be used for a simple, single conversation thread, for example to share updates and arrange lifts to an event, and for most events that will probably be enough.
You will also find Club Forums, which are available to all club members to initiate and join conversations with each other. Group Co-ordinators and Committee members will find forums here for conversations among their peers.
You can opt to be notified by email of new conversations in a Forum, or of new contributions to a conversation (a Topic). These will appear in My GOC under Your Notified Forums and Your Notified Topics, alongside all the Group, Event and Club forums available to you. You can of course opt not to participate in forums at all, in which case you will not be affected by them.
Please expect to see further changes and improvements over the coming weeks, as we are still working on refining the design and functionality of both of these features - particularly to the design of the forums. In the meantime, please do message me with any questions or feedback, via my own newly expanded Profile page or by email to [email protected].
If you are interested to help to moderate the forums, especially if you have experience of managing online communities, then please let me know or respond to the form at Governance and Committee. They will be more likely to work well for everyone if we are able to support members to use them well, and if we are quick to respond to any concerns around how they are used.
Thank you!
