Gympie Community Groups & Flood Recovery

To Service Providers
- includes established organisations and volunteer privateer groups & individuals.

In an effort to simplify the retrieval of information by hard working souls, connecting with, and aiding in the recovery of, those whom have been affected by the recent floods, I have built a (beta version) bulletin board for the use of those that do not have Facebook or find it too hard to find what they want/need. This is in addition to the portal website I have been operating for the last couple of weeks.

For all users - On both the bulletin board and the portal website, 'RSS' &/or 'Atom' news feeds are available so you can get a concise list of unread articles and posts. These 'feeds' are readily available in most web browsers, either as an extension/plugin, or built in. The bulletin board gives you the choice of whole board, single forum, or single post to monitor.

The idea of a bulletin board came from the realisation that the donation hubs run by the community members are in jeopardy of loosing their sheds/shops. If we could no longer store the larger items like furniture and whitegoods, then it would be good to have a place that could connect the service providers and donors with each other and the recipients.

By using an electronic bulletin board, service providers can offer their services so those affected souls that can get on the Internet or visit the Library and use its computers, will be able to find the help that suits them. No need for a Facebook account.

The service providers, including those volunteering via the donation hubs, will also be able to discuss issues, what's needed, what's required, or where can we get a particular item or service for a client. You will be able to have one post and treat it like an advert listing, editing over time when things change. Or you can add a new post every time something new needs to be broadcast. The latest created, edited, or replied to postings always bubble up to the top. And the latest will be in the news feeds as well.

I would like to encourage anyone with general computer skills, and especially the service providers, to help me fine tune this bulletin board and make it a really good workable tool for all involved.

At this time, I am only advertising this directly to service provider organisations directly. So right now there is no email verification for new users seeking to register on the bulletin board. Simply enter your desired username, password, and real name, and you are good to go. Once we have more people using it, and we start to promote it to a wider audience, I will turn on email verification to reduce the numbers of spammers and bad actors jumping on board.

So please, if you are interested in this project, register your account now at: https://gympiecommunitygroup.com/forum/

You will find more information about this bulletin board, about me, about the software driving the board, and where the website is hosted, in my replies to this topic.

Here is a bit of info about me and the system.

The website is hosted in a high security data centre in Brisbane connected to the high speed network ring. I have a virtual private server (aka VPS) there, and the Gympie Community Group website is hosted by me at no cost.

The hosting service provider I use is Conetix Pty Ltd (https://conetix.com.au/), and I have personally had a business relationship with them since 2007. They are a local family owned Queensland based company with a long track record of providing quality, secure website hosting solutions. I have known Jamin and Jeff there since the beginning and trust them totally.

My background is 43 years in the computer, networking, and data communications industry. Most of this time I have been in the supplier side, in established computer supply companies, and operated my own business (sole trader and website development company) since 1996.

I am now a carer for my wife on disability. I also volunteer as the IT Manager for Gympie Medical Transport.

And I live at the eastern end of Veteran.

The new bulletin board is powered by a long established (2001) open source software solution call phpBB (https://www.phpbb.com/about/). This software powers a gazillion forums around the globe and is considered "best of breed" by many hosting companies and webmasters.

The main website uses a content management system (CMS) to deliver the pages to you and is powered by Joomla! (https://www.joomla.org/). This, too, is one of the most widely use CMSs in use on the world wide web. It is highly secure, very flexible, and has a strong developer community behind it.

At present all boards are read only for guests without an account. To post or reply on the boards, one has to be a registered user. If the community want a board to be private to registered users only, I am happy to adjust the permissions.

The system allows moderators to be appointed either across the whole system or to individual boards as needed. These people will have the ability to ban spammers and other bad actors. They can also move posts to a more appropriate board if feel you will get better answers or engagement in a different board.

So what is on the bulletin board at the moment?

There is a General section which contains an announcement board where I will post information about conditions of use, future plans, and operational issues, and general site information (like this topic).

There is also a New Users board there where questions can be asked about how to use the system.

There is also a Gympie Flood recovery section with boards for donors & helpers, the flood affected, service providers, and a general flood recovery discussion board. And if you find it useful, there is an "in the news" board as well.

Anyone using the system is welcome to suggest new subject boards, and with community support, these will be added.