Update - January 9, 2002
An Update from the Avalanche Center
http://www.avalanche-center.org/
January 9, 2002
Online in html: http://www.avalanche-center.org/Organization/updates/
Translations: https://translate.google.com/
(To translate this update enter the webpage URL above and then follow
the link on the translated page.)
Quick Contents:
- Fall Fundraising Auction a Success
- Changes of Direction
- New Things on the Site
- How you can Help
Fall Fundraising Auction a Success
Our fourth annual auction is mostly wrapped
up by now and was a great success. We had more items contributed by
more companies than ever before. All items went out to high bidders.
We raised somewhere around $3000 which is, for us, a significant amount.
Thanks to all of the companies who
contributed items (and are listed in our Avalanche Network) and thanks to those who participated by bidding.
Changes of Direction
Some of the things we are in the midst of working hard on represent
some changes of direction for the site and the project.
Our goal remains maintaining a quality site that serves people needing
and appreciating the information, over quantity which sprawls or high
numbers of visitors who are randomly surfing through. (All visitors
are welcome, of course. But we don't believe in the numbers game as
a goal when it isn't backed by quality.)
We are trying to consolidate the site into fewer sections. Most material
in the phased-out sections will be relocated to the remaining ones.
We expect to phase out the "Other Cool Stuff" section and later the
"Download" section. Our three major
remaining sections will be Conditions, Incidents
and Education and we will continue to maintain
the less-used Professional Resources section
as well. This consolidation will ultimately make it easier for us to
keep things up to date with minimal bad links, etc. It also means less
hunting around for what you are looking for.
Another change is to begin to offer a few more services and features
for our contributors, in a new "Contributor
Services" section which can be logged into. At this time the
services which we offer to contributors include e-mail
service for many US bulletins, the ability to search
and sort our incidents database, access to our index of photos on
the web and printable copies of the "Avalanche
Gazette". Most of this is still available in less-enhanced
forms to everyone - the Bulletins are web-posted with html links to
our glossary, all incidents are available to read, and the Gazette issues
can be read online (but not printed) by anyone.
We have a new home page in preparation which will reflect some of these
changes. It's close to being put up online but still needs some refining
and some more testing on different platforms. Watch for it soon!
New Things on the Site
Here is a section-by-section update of what has been going on lately:
Avalanche Store: We now have decals
(stickers) with the skiing skeleton logo on them! They are 25 cents
each or 100 for $15. The other new book we just added is "Staying
Alive in Avalanche Terrain" by Bruce Tremper. Now that it's
mid-winter we keep as well stocked as we can afford to and right now
we have a couple of each beacon on the shelf ready to ship. So if you
need that beacon for your next upcoming trip we can get it to you, regardless
of which model you want. Finally, we realized that the store
front page had problems with the many of the shopping cart entries.
These have all been fixed and adding items to your cart from the main
page should work for all items now. Each items product page is also
being reformatted and as we get those done we are double checking the
cart functions and the price fields. Special contributor services in
the store include discounts on additional shirts purchased on the same
order and either free shipping (from the form) or a free Nalgene
Bottle (from the shopping cart). Remind us you are a contributor
to get these breaks.
Current Conditions: We have been through
the section a couple times to check on a few things. Almost all of the
links should be good now. On the pages with the US bulletins we have
gone through all the formatting to be sure that it is consistent and
working properly. This has been checked daily and they are all formatting
well. Finally, some people (with ulterior motives) like to question
the currency and accuracy of our bulletins. All bulletins are current
to within one hour (maximum) of their release, and all of the daily
content is included. We've been doing this for 6 or 7 years now and
have an excellent track record on this. Special contributor services
in this section consist of our e-mail
list service allowing subscribers to receive bulletins automatically
by e-mail (also within one hour maximum of their release).
Incidents: At this moment we have 32 incidents
which are reported in this section for this season. This is more than
you will find anywhere else on the internet in a single tabulation.
We have been reformatting last years and adding them to our sql database,
which now has about 70 incidents in it going back to March 1. Very shortly
it will go back to Feb 1. These can be searched and sorted by month,
activity, and/or location. The public
interface will return up to 4 records, the interface in the Contributor
Services area will return unlimited records. Contributors can also subscribe
to an e-mail list which is used to issue a daily list of updates on
each day when any are made. We are only keeping the latest five reports
on the front page now, and sometimes one is there for a day only, or
even less. So the e-mail update is the best way to keep informed. Finally,
the Incidents Section now contains the first hand accounts which were
previously in the "Other Cool Stuff" area.
Education: While there is more to do in this
area it has taken a back seat to the projects above for now. We do have
a searchable database of courses.
We include the courses of any commercial interest which
contributes at least $35, pretty cheap for a seasons listing of all
their courses. Non-profits can still list theirs for free. Many schools
have no interest in spending this modest amount to help make our resources
available to you, and some seem to be interested but find the concept
hard to understand and follow through on. While there are other listings
which are free they sometimes have unspecified criteria. One of our
sponsoring organizations requested at least twice to be listed on the
AAA website but received no reply and was never listed. So don't assume
that other longer listings are complete, or unbiased. (This particular
organizations courses are popular enough to have filled up anyway.)
How you can Help
In each update we like to suggest ways in which you can help our efforts.
Right now we are not too far past the end of 2001. If you suddenly
realize you need additional tax deductions for 2001 please consider
contributing to our work, there are ways that contributions made early
enough this year can still work to your benefit on your 2001 taxes.
We have 501c3 status in
the US and charity status with Revenue Canada.
Many companies match employee contributions. If you are contributing
yourself you can leverage this support into a higher amount by taking
advantage of this. Only a few people think of this, but there seem to
be a few more this year than in the past. We especially thank the several
contributors from Microsoft who took the time to get matching funds.
Stay Aware, Stay Informed, Stay Safe
Let the 32 incidents already posted serve as a reminder to be safe
and, when necessary, cautious. Do what you can to keep the rest of this
season safe as well as fun for yourself and your companions. Use our
site, http://www.avalanche-center.org/ , to keep on top of things.
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