Dear TeamKitfox.com members,
Having launched in June, TeamKitfox.com is now three months old. We currently have 180 members and are growing steadily. Two new features that have been on my "to-do" have been added recently...
KOTM -- The 'Kitfox of the month' (KOTM) program was launched this month, fittingly with Steve Wilson's Model 1. It's quite a story, if you haven't read it yet I'm sure you'll enjoy the read. KOTM entries will stay in the archives indefinitely and just keep accumulating for reference. Currently I have no submissions in the queue so if you have a flying Kitfox please consider submitting it, instructions are in a 'sticky' message at the top of the KOTM forum.
Photo Albums -- The second important feature is the addition of Photo Albums for each member, a feature newly added in the most recent major release of vBulletin. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with them, and I plan to write some supplemental instructions for coaching users through the Photo Album feature in particular. Basically though, once you're logged in (check your login satus in the upper right corner of the forum screen) go to the 'UserCP', click on 'Albums & Photos' and follow the instructions. Steve Kellander's Albums are a nice example, you can see them here.
vBulletin is a feature-rich forum platform with all sorts of great use and management tools. As with most powerful tools though one needs to learn how to use it. I think one of the best management tools is 'forum subscriptions': you can have a daily e-mail sent to you summarizing any activity in each individual forum, both new and updated threads, with direct links to each.
Essentially, while you're welcome to come in any time and just surf around, 'subscribing' to a forum triggers an e-mail to be sent to you once a day summazing new and updated threads in the forum. You can click on a link for each thread and go directly to it if you have some interest, or just delete the e-mail and move on if nothing is of interest to you. You do need to manually set up your subscription for *each forum* such as General discussion, Engines, Propellers, Classifieds, etc. Try it, I think you'll like it. Remember though that as any new forums get added you'll need to set up subscriptions for those as well. Thread subscriptions work similarly: when in any thread of interest click on the 'Thread tools' menu at the top and select 'Subscribe to thread'. That way you'll be sent an e-mail instantly if there's any activity. This is especially useful when you post a question you need help with.
I did a bit of remodeling on the site front page: the current KOTM will now be featured in the upper right corner, and, I've added a news column just below it where I'll list especially newsworthy Kitfox news. First flights, event notices, and factory announcements are the sorts of things that'll get mentioned. Yes, the rotating beauty shots are gone for now but I'm hoping that the KOTM and the Photo Albums will provide enough eye candy for everyone.
Lastly, thanks very much to Mark Smith and Steve Kellander for stepping up to do Moderator duty. TeamKitfox.com will always remain a civil and Kitfox-focused forum thanks to the Moderators. The only moderating I've done so far is to simply move two threads that were in the wrong forum, you guys are doing great.
Overall I'm quite pleased with the progress we're making and sincerely hope you are too.
Best regards,
