Yateley Camera Club Forums: How to use them

Logging on to the Forums

On your internet browser go to the Yateley Camera Club website http://www.yateleycameraclub.co.uk/
In the menu column on the left, hover the pointer over Members’ Forum then over Registered Members Access; click on it:

This will take you to the logon page.
Enter your username and password in the yellow boxes:

TIP If you want it to have you log on automatically each time, click in the little box by to login button.
Now click on the Login button and you will see something similar to the following:

Selecting a Forum

At the time of writing, there are three forums; two are available to all registered members and they are the YCC Forum for Members and a separate one for Items for Sale or Wanted. A third forum entitled YCC Committee is visible only to registered members of the committee. (If you are a committee member and you cannot see it, please let the Web Coordinator know).
The main forum is the YCC Forum for Members; I shall use that one as an example.

Yes, I know, the last sentence in the highlighted box doesn’t make sense. It should say “This forum is available only to registered members”. The point being is that members can post information here knowing it will be read only by other members.
Now, click on the YCC Forum for Members:

Viewing the Forum

Now that you have opened the forum, you can see a list of topics as in the previous example. Each topic has a parent which is the first entry and may have one or more children which are the replies. By default, the topics are ordered by date of last post; however currently there are half a dozen ‘sticky’ topics so named because they are always stick at the top of the list. Topics are made sticky if the moderator (again the web coordinator) believes they should be quickly accessible. Sticky topics have the keyhole symbol .
A topic has the following information:

Here the title is Focus Group and the original topic was added by Ron Ward on 22 Jan 2009. There are 8 replies, the topic has been viewed on 46 occasions and the last reply is by Richard Pullan made on 26 Jan 2009. To open the topic click on the topic title; notice it goes red and underscored when the pointer moves over it . Now you will be able to read the topic and it’s replies.

Should I create a new topic or reply to an existing topic?

Before creating a new topic, check the existing topics to determine if what you wish to add would be suitable as a reply to one of them. If not, feel free to create a new topic.

Replying to a topic

Open the topic you wish to reply to then near the bottom of the page, click on the POSTREPLY button. Here is a screen shot to guide you:

When submitted, it will appear after all the existing replies.

Creating a new topic

To create a new topic, go to the main forum view where all the topics are listed.
TIP You can get there by clicking on the navigator panel near the top of the page:

Click on the NEWTOPIC button near the bottom of the page. Follow the guidance as provided in the screen shoot in the previous replying to a topic section, but ensure the subject has a suitable and meaningful title.