About the website

The Island Archers website was originially conceived and designed by the immensely talented (and not to mention generous) archer and web-guru Murray Elliot (right) of Numerique Limited, adapted from a design for the Balbardie & Grange Archers, his archery club(s).

The site has since been 'lovingly butchered' by Island Archers' slightly inexpert and , Toby Marshall, who has learned how it all works from sticking his nose in an appropriately-titled 'For Dummies' book and added sections and menu items as they have become needed over a number of years.

If anyone wishes to point out some 'deliberate mistakes' or make comments or suggestions, please feel free to , who will do his best to correct any discrepancies.

Latest Additions / Amendments

22/03/2010	Added Social Networking 'SHARE' button to the bottom of all full news items. Working to integrate this feature sitewide.
	Also added PDFs of the new GNAS / Archery GB Rules of Shooting and Shooting Administrative Procedures to the LINKS > DOCUMENTS section.
20/03/2010	Island Archers now has a Posterous Blog. Also found some nicer icons for all the social media stuff, which have been integrated throughout the site.
05/03/2010	Island Archers now has a Twitter feed to be used as a place to post late-breaking information, updates, and suchlike.
15/02/2010	Added an 'Archery' subsection to the 'About' tab, to give novices an idea of the different disciplines and bow styles within the sport. Slight re-jigging of the 'About' menu to give a more logical order. Hyperlinking on the 'This month's competiton round' row on the front page so clicking on the round name downloads a score sheet, and also allowing a score submission from the 'submit score' link next to it.
09/02/2010	Added a 'Costs' subsection to the 'About' tab. Very important, in this day-and-age. Also amendments to the Winter Series rules to permit Half-Portsmouth rounds where time is insufficient to shoot a full Portsmouth. Added Half-Portsmouth score sheet and score submission page to the Rounds section. Changing over Score Sheets from Word Documents to Adobe Acrobat PDF in order to maintain page formatting, and since more people's computers are able to read PDFs without having to fork out for Microsoft Office or download OpenOffice.
21/10/2009	Complete revamp of the 60-arrow (Portsmouth, Matheson, FITA 18, etc.) score submission form to make the 'look and feel' similar to the Club's standard scoresheets.
13/10/2009	Not really about this website, but Island Archers now has a FACEBOOK GROUP for members past and present.
02/10/2009	After discussion at the Club AGM, simplified and amended the rules for the WINTER SERIES to allow for people to have two 'discards' so as not to be penalised should they be unable to shoot on a club competition night.
04/03/2009	Added RSS (Really Simple Syndication) news feed to both the HOME and CLUB NEWS pages to allow Island Archers news to be read by iGoogle home pages and other news feed readers. People can read what's happening without visiting the site - just click on the orange icon at the top of the page.
02/03/2009	Updated the information and results on the SPORTS FEST page.
12/02/2009	Phew - Too much to mention, really! Website domains moved to new registrant and site moved to space provided by a new web host, allowing for cheaper running costs and more flexibility in how the website 'back end' is handled. Apologies for anyone who was unable to access the website whilst the transition was taking place. Re-configured emails and added new mailing lists.
	Installed an updated version of Fusion News Content Management System, which gives greater security and flexibility. Newly-added features include comments and an emailing system to send news stories to a friend.
14/01/2009	Added more Manufacturers to the OEM LINKS section.
	Continuing work on the CSS style sheet for ROUNDS and RECORDS tables, and slight tweaks to font colours.
14/01/2009	Added 10 more retailers to the ONLINE RETAILER LINKS section and updated the Retail Price Index.
13/01/2009	Further configuration and formatting work on the News Content Management System.
12/01/2009	Formatting and content changes to the COMMITTEE page.
	Introduced Amazon Associates-powered RECOMMENDED READING section to the DOCUMENTS LINKS page.
11/01/2009	Amended the WINTER SERIES rules to mandate score submissions via the online score submission form and to require notification of any rules changes on the Club's website and via email to all Club members. Notification of rules changes must now be posted on the Club's website and emailed to all club members so no-one can claim they are unaware of the change.
	Slight formatting changes to LINKS section.
08/01/2009	Adjustment to logo (top left) font and colours to echo colours used elsewhere on the website.
	New Favicon (the small image that appears next to the URL of the site) added.
06/01/2009	Further work on the News CMS user interface, and generated a Island Archers website-specific 'skin'.
05/01/2009	Finished migrating all previous news onto the News Content Management System (CMS).
	Modification of various elements of the News CMS user interface to simplify controls and make instructions more explicit.
03/01/2009	Added 'Fusion News' Content Management System (CMS) to HOME page, to allow 'authorised users' (other than the overworked-and-underpaid Webmaster) within the Club to post news items and other notices to the website without having to learn website programming languages, or have any specialist software loaded onto their computer.

Future Additions

As soon as the hosting company installs the necessary technology, and your hard-working webmaster begins to understand it, the following additions are planned (in order of priority):

PHP/MySQL database for club score records and membership tracking. Foundations laid with an email submission system; just need to get it to input directly into a MySQL database.
Integrating an RSS feed reader into the HOME page to read news from other archery sources.
Integrating a Gallery function into the site.
Introducing a stripped-down MOBILE version of the site for access by mobile phones with web browsers.
Online payment system for the purchase of club regalia and payment of subscriptions.

...just don't hold your breath.
If there's anyone out there who has the ability to assist the webmaster in achieving the aforementioned goals, please feel free to .