The web site is designed to provide as much useful information that we can provide flowing through the web master and from the board. The other, and even more significant, value of the web site is to connect all of you! That means opening up “channels” to share great things between us, providing a neighborhood private way to talk about our business together, and find each other for fun or to just discover how wonderful our neighbors really are.
Here is a list of the many areas you can add to the web site and contribute. Never be afraid to put things in there. Nothing will break and you have control to remove or edit your additions if you wish. I tend to have to do that at times because my typing is so bad that many things end up misspelled :).
Find your friends….
The Resident Directory is the place to find each other, but it is so much more..
In the Resident Directory you have complete control over your personal profile. We encourage you to add things about yourself so others can find you based on what you like to do, interests, where you live and others parameters. Again, this is only seen by neighbors in Five Forks. No one on the outside can access this information. One of the really cool features is your ability to create your own set of photo albums!
To find each other there is a search function built in at the top of the directory. Consider you might want to go find all of those folks who like to get together to jam. Many of those folks may have selected being part of the “Music” group. You can search for all of them! Maybe you want to know who has interests in wood working. You can search the “Interests” field to find “wood” for example. Also note that at the top right of the residents directory page you can print out a copy of the entire directory so you can read it later offline! Since you folks keep this updated its as new as it possibly can be. There will be another posing later to go further on how to use this “Search” feature.
The Calendar….
The calendar wil have all the board meetings, annual meetings, and picnics in it and anything else the board wants to make sure you know about. You can add events to this as well. If we forget to remind everyone when the Folks School” annual event is coming up put an entry in.
Homes for sale….
This is a nice feature to add promotion to the properties we are selling that is tied to all the great things external folks can see on our web site. If you are selling a lot or a house put an entry in here. This can be seen by outsiders.
Classifieds….
Only neighbors can see these classifieds. You want to sell that great chain saw you just dont use anymore? I bet you can find a neighbor who can put it to good use. Let everyone know what you have for sale or might even want to donate something to a good cause. For now we have this internal only. The board was not sure we wanted this to be a way to encourage external folks to come into the neighborhood but do give feedback on how you want to use this service.
Vendors and Services area...
Only neighbors can see this and contribute to this. We all need to find that great handyman at times and its often hard to know which one to trust. This will allow you to let al the rest of us know of a compnay or someone you have gotten services from and really liked them. It works in two parts. The section you enter the name and information about the peson and the company which you do once. Then ther is an area where anyone who have used them can comment on their experience and even give them a rating! This is an internal only list so we can be honest but respectful on our reviews :)
The Message Board…
Now this is a fun place to hang out. This is an neighbors only area so we can “talk” to each other. There are categories in place for various topics but you can open up a discussion in any one of them and then others can comment. You can share attachments like a document you found to share as well. Of course we have some basic rules of respect that we dont flame or offer feedback that is not constructive in nature :) Thisis also a great place to “alert” everyone with a message. If you saw a questionable animal out acting odd in the daylight for example, I would want to know about it. You can “subscribe” to the message board so it will automatically email you if a new posting is made too. This has changed. It didn't work as well as we thought. Hoping to have it working again in the future.
Reviews…
I am always wondering if I should go to that new movie thats out down in Blairsville or at the Hen. This is where we can tell each other what we liked so I dont waste my money on that 3000th remake of a Christmas story :)
Recipies...
Ok who does not want to brag about their culinary skill and share Grandmothers secret ingredients???
Blog..
You can be an author for the Blog. Just request access from the webmaster (Sam). But you can comment and add information to articles in the Blog. This is an area for us to tell stories and teach each other. Do become a contributor. Sam has moved, and the new webmaster is Lee Rogers.
Voting online and Surveys..
From time to time we will be able to take surveys on topics concerning the neighborhood. The broad plans on using this to do online voting for thise who can take advantage of this. Some times we may be surveying everyone to see what the prevailing though is on a proposed business action.
And really anywhere you can strike up a conversation with the web master if you want to contribute to a section.
Jump in and play with all of this..