South Bruce is 'bush fire prone'

The Canberra Times reported today about a new bushfire risk map for the ACT.

The ACT Emergency Services Agency reveals only centralised, clustered suburbs across Canberra escape the 'bush fire prone' label.

All of South Bruce is in the bushfire risk area.

Thursday, 29 October 2015, 06:05:54 PM

Prescribed burns on Gossan Hill - 28 & 29 October 2015

Here are some videos and photos from the ACT Parks Service's Twitter feed about the prescribed burns on Gossan Hill.

Gossan & Aranda burns completed. Crews working to secure edges. Once secure they will depart. Smoke may be visible pic.twitter.com/HPjKvneXcd

— ACT Parks Service (@ACT_Parks) October 29, 2015

Gossan Hill prescribed burn, Bruce. Reducing fuels for asset protection. pic.twitter.com/ipgHMtIFI1

— ACT Parks Service (@ACT_Parks) October 29, 2015

Asset protection pic.twitter.com/ZMKuiwUoYK

— ACT Parks Service (@ACT_Parks) October 29, 2015

Gossan Hill completed; crews working to secure edges; Once secured crews will depart, interior smoke may be visible pic.twitter.com/3cfJFT9EIy

— ACT Parks Service (@ACT_Parks) October 28, 2015

Gossan Burn Update: Due to impact of smoke on public,we will not implement the 2nd burn area today (1 of 2) pic.twitter.com/EakGK6gstA

— ACT Parks Service (@ACT_Parks) October 28, 2015

Prescribed burns continuing tomorrow:cont. Gossan;Begin Aranda GDE, & Jerra Grasslands https://t.co/OMlJZShySW (2/2) pic.twitter.com/zPThnBRpUS

— ACT Parks Service (@ACT_Parks) October 28, 2015

Our email group is now active

• Our new email group is active.
• Our old member message system is no longer to be used, and will be completely retired soon.
• All existing 134 SBRA members have been added to our new email group, and ought to have received a welcome email in the last 24 hours or so.
• Use the mailing list form on this site if you think you've missed out on being included in the new mailing list.

Sunday, 25 October 2015, 03:18:32 PM

New website

Some history

SBRA decided to create new online facilities for it members in late 2014.

Through a survey, SBRA members said they preferred the idea of SBRA running its own private website, liked the option of member forums, and seemed reluctant to use anything like Facebook Groups.

The SBRA website was built accordingly. It was a membership-based site, with private forum facilities, and most content was restricted to logged-in members.

What we learned

Since we launched the site, we learned:

• There really wasn't any demand for the SBRA member forums
• We've not been flooded with interesting news and events to publish
• There were few comments on website posts
• The activity level at the site was very, very low
• Almost nobody subscribed to the website directly to get updates and news
• Some members struggled with logins and passwords
• We averaged roughly one member message submission per month
• Our site (like all websites) was continuously bombarded with robotic intrusion and spam attacks, necessitating some inconvenient security settings in response

In other words, the website wasn't exactly serving as the hub of an online interactive community. It's main job was sending out the odd email message to members. It was just operating as an announcement service.

Focussing on the essentials

The old site was too complicated for the actual needs of the members (as demonstrated by actual usage rates).

Our new facilities focus on the things our members value the most:

• A simple website, with basic information about SBRA
• An email discussion group for members

Technology - Old website

The old website used a range of technologies to make it work:

• Wordpress.org - Content management system
• Domain name services from VentraIP - A good value .au registrar
• Web hosting at Zuver.com.au - Their A$2 per month plan was excellent value
• Contact Form 7 - For turning member form responses into emails
• Zapier - For processing emails from Contact Form 7 into new website posts
• Autochimp plugin - For turning new posts from Zapier into Mailchimp messages to members
• Mailchimp - Member mail distribution
• Akismet - Anti-spam system
• bbPress - Member forums
• Jetpack - Usage stats, and much more
• WangGuard - Anti-splogger system
• WP-Members - Restricts content access to members only
• Webmaster email - Gmail

Aside from the domain names and webhosting, all these services are available without cost (at least at the volumes relevant for SBRA).

Technology - New website

VentraIP still provides our domain name registration, but everything else is delivered (without costs) through the Google ecosystem:

• Website - Blogger (a Google property)
• Email discussion forums - Google Groups
• Webmaster email - Gmail
• Website theme - Mystery, by seobloggertemplates.