Howe Island Ratepayers Association - HIRA LAUNCHES A NEW AND IMPROVED WEB SITE

To: All Members
From: Terry Botten
RE: HIRA'S NEW AND IMPROVED WEB SITE

Many of our members have mentioned that our web site was confusing to navigate to get information. As well, many of you said you wanted to be alerted as to when items were posted as you don't visit the site on a regular basis (while we had a programme to advise members of a posting, it was hit and miss and we were having problems to correct it).

The Board agreed to look for a new web management provider and under the direction of one of our members, Robert Hall, a new provider has been found. We're delighted to introduce The Cyberhood to everyone, a provider that works with nonprofit organizations. Over the past couple of weeks, The Cyberhood (Rich and Elliot), Robert and I have been moving, changing, editing, eliminating...stuff. Rich and Elliot have been very responsive to our needs. The site isn't finished yet and it will take a few more weeks to restore, update and improve the functionality of the website.

At this time, we're asking you to register. If you recall, our membership form had a box that asked if you would like to receive notification of new content being posted to our site automatically...your permission is required. It now can be done online by logging on to www.howeisland.org and follow the prompts. Certainly, if you don't want to receive these notifications, you can simply log on whenever you want and as in the past, anyone can log on to our site. However, there could be applications that we would want our members to know exclusively and by registering, you will have access to such items.

In closing, a big thank you to Robert Hall as Robert will financially support the site management over the next two years.

As always, your input is valued and if you have any comments or questions, please email terrybotten@hotmail.com