The Christmas break has given me the chance to do lots of the things I've really wanted to get done, but just haven't had a moment to achieve. One of which is the 3rd Billericay Scout Troop website, called Orion Online.
It was started 10 years ago although it has recently had a period where it wasn't active. The hold up as been that before making active again, I've wanted to use a different website engine or CMS (content management system) so that it makes contributing to the site as easy as possible. This is now done and I've added some useful tools such as a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor besides many others. You now don't need a PhD in Astro-Physics to create content and publish it to the world, much like many of the others sites I've built in recent years. In fact, children as young as 5 years old have used this technology and have been successful with it.
There is much more content to add, so much of it was out of date, but as with all websites they are never "finished" only work in progress as they contain more and more content and support the users better. We've long had a history of our Scouts visiting a research lab in Chelmsford in order to use their computer facilities for updating the website. That organisation has since closed, so we are looking for an alternative location where we could have access to computers with Internet access. It's a great activity for Scouts during the Winter months particularly when then 'OUT' in Scouting is more difficult to achieve. Please do get in contact if you are able to offer such a space.
