Winter 2010

Hi,

This is my first newsletter as the Chair of SURG. Firstly a quick introduction to those of you who don't know me, I am Colin Towers and many of you will have met me on walks or at the many pub nights we've held. For the past year I have been the Web Officer for the group. I've now taken over the role of Chair from Chris and will be keeping you up to date with the events of the group.

As Chair I would like to thank the previous Committee for their service in the last year and also to welcome the new Committee. The Committee's details and photos are now on the website on the contact us page. I hope that we will ensure the variety of walks and social events are provided for you, the members.

SURG programme

I'd like to take the opportunity to welcome our newer members, and remind everyone how to keep up to date with the current programme.

We made the decision a few months ago to run a rolling programme. Keep checking our website to stay up-to-date with the changes as walks may be put on at shorter notice than in previous years - see below for further details.

Using the website and new password

Our main front page (http://www.surreyyoungwalkers.org.uk/) will show any events that are due in the next two weeks.

While almost all of our walks our shown to the public, the walk leaders' contact details and many socials are not shown unless you have logged in. To do this, enter the following details in the top right hand corner of the main page:

Username: (not shown in web version of newsletter)
Password: (not shown in web version of newsletter)

Note that if you don't see these, but instead see a "Log out" link in the top menu, this means you are already logged in. Normally you will stay logged in for around 3 weeks unless you click "Log out".

Once you are logged in the pages on the website will list all events and show the event leaders' contact details.

To see a full list of upcoming walks or socials, click the links at the top of the page. For a full list containing both, go to http://www.surreyyoungwalkers.org.uk/members/members-programme.html. Note that if you wish to take a printed copy, your web browser will automatically produce a printer-friendly page.

Bad weather and late changes

In one or two cases every year it can be necessary to change or cancel walks. Before going to an event, please make sure you take a note of the event leaders name, phone number and the start location. When there is heavy snow that might prevent the walk leader from getting to an event, please check the website first for the latest information.

Web officer

Our committee still needs of a web officer. Most of all we need of someone with the time to refresh the appearance of our site. You don't need much technical knowledge for this - just an eye for what looks good and makes sense to our visitors. This would particularly suit someone who would like to help out, learn a little about websites and has just a few hours spare over the coming months.

If anyone is interested in the programming/maintainance work then there is also an opportunity to add further features, though since the new site went live in 2008 there has only been one essential update that we needed to have. This would suit someone who has some IT knowledge and would like to learn about Drupal and PHP.

Future events

We're always looking for new events to add to our programme and we rely upon you to help us put them on. If you've ever found yourself wishing for something else on the programme then please get in touch - our walks and socials secretaries have a number of volunteers ready to help you put on your first walk or social.

Annual Barbeque

As the new year is here, we're now looking for a number of volunteers to assist running the annual SURG Barbeque. We normally run this in on a Saturday evening in July or August. As well as the usual music in the evening, we're also looking for new ideas to keep us entertained.

If you're handy at making kebabs, prepare a super salad, keen to cook or have some great entertainment ideas then get in touch with me. There will be plenty of help, so it's not a big commitment. If you're not able to fully commit to a date immediately, that's not a problem either.

We would like to set the date and get the venue booked in the next few months, so if I could ask everyone to let me know which things they would like to help with by 26th March.

Look forward to seeing you at a walk or pub night soon.

Colin.