Over the past few years the KV-Scouts website has evolved from it’s original humble beginnings into a menu driven multi-layered behemoth. Recently it occurred to me that having the world of scouting information available for the members of the KV District in a one-stop-shop of sorts was no longer the way to go.

What I mean by that is that it’s very difficult to provide everything for everybody. So I decided to step back and ponder the question; “What is it that people are really looking for when they visit the site?”

I ended up with a list of items.

  • Timely relevant information about upcoming scouting events in the KV District
  • Forms related to those events (if any)
  • Advancement information (including Eagle BoR dates)
  • Contact information

To break it down a little further allow me to explain my thoughts behind each item.

Timely information: This is a no brainer. It’s by far the reason that people visit the site the most. Yet under the Joomla setup Scott could not update the site and I was not always able to. This needed to change.

Forms: Having a repository of up to date forms on the site is a huge undertaking since there are literally hundreds of different scouting forms out there. Thankfully there are plenty of decent sites that already have that covered. In the upcoming weeks I will add those links. Until then every unit in KV should have received a CD-ROM handout that contains many of those common forms further negating a reason to maintain them on the KV site.

That said it is important to have specific up-to-date forms about outings etc. available. Under this new format we will still have those available.

Advancement information: Also on the CD-ROM is a lot of advancement information. Likewise, other sites like MeritBadge.com cover that already so we will no longer. It’s simply too much to keep up with. However, we will still have pertinent information about upcoming Eagle Boards of Review.

Contact Information: Our old Who’s Who lists were very big at times. The new ones (once built) will be short and to the point.

So that’s it in a nutshell. A leaner more productive site.

Oh wait! There’s one more thing.

We have installed a forum for Scouts and Scouters here in the KV District. If you’ve never used a forum (or bulletin board) before I strongly encourage you to have a look. It’s an excellent efficient way to keep in touch with your fellow scouts and scouters. You can just read other peoples posts or you can post something yourself. Ask a question, answer someone else’s question or get updates on all that’s happening. In order to guard against spam you can only join the board if you are a scout or scouter in the KV District. Go ahead and register, once approved by someone on the website team you will get an email letting you know and then you can read and post from there on.

In any case, I’d like to thank you for your patience and hope that you enjoy the change. If you do, then go ahead and post your comments on the forum. If not you can do that too. Just keep it clean and friendly. After all it is a scouting site. ;-)

Steve Mudie