Jim,
No need to be apologetic.
The recent loss of our bulletin board has highlighted the real importance of this facility.
Since many of us do not possess the literary genius required to grace the pages of Timber Framing we desparately need this forum to be able to share our more ordinary and mundane experiences with other members and visitors.
I don't believe that any of us are any less valuable or cannot contribute in some way to the strength and resource provided by the TFG body provided we have an effective and efficient 2 way means of communication.
Our "old fashined", paper based, 1 way methods of communication are subject to editing, suffers from a tremedous time lag before publication and costs a lot of money to implement and operate and is not user friendly.
I recently lost my TF no 56 and in desparation turned to the Guild to buy a replacement but with no positive outcome. I was however able to download Jack Sobon's article from this issue direct from the Guild web site. This may seem trivial but it is really important to be able to quickly tap into our data base of established knowledge.
I greatly value having been able to seek answers through this board to the real problems that I face in my career as a timber frame designer and engineer and I am very grateful that the membership, including Jim, has responded and helped me resolve or at least develop a better understanding on a particular issue.
The data bank of learning that had become established on "Ask The Experts" was getting to the point where using an advance search facility would probably have yielded a result on almost any topic.
This demonstrates that even though none of us knows all the answers, collectively we seem to manage to get there.
It would be quite correct to assume that I was "mad as hell" to discover the loss of 2 years worth of entries to the board and yes I was frustrated in not knowing where I should turn to to get my password problem solved but then maybe this is in part because I know that the Guild is no longer a poor organisation and has money in the bank to help solve problems such as these.
I agree it is wrong for us to put Joel in the firing line and extend my apologies to him for being the butt of our frustrations but right now he is our first point of contact when in fact he should be the last. This needs to change.
Any big company or organisation knows and understands the necessity and importance of backing up computer information. The TFG should be no different in this respect.
As an organisation the membership is thinly spread over an extremley wide area spanning many continents. I doubt if the purchase of a new permanent home for the Guild matters more than sorting out our long range communication skills and capability.
Jim's questions on how to post a picture, simple though it is, needs to be answered. If I knew the answer I would tell Jim and I would probably post pictures myself.
In my opinion our first priority should be to maintain, improve and service internet based comunications methods since this will most equitably benefit all of the membership.
Can we please have a "toot" graemlin. I am now finished sounding off.
Regards
Ken Hume
