First let me thank you all, both for letting me serve you at the Area level and for putting up with all the changes that have been taking place here at www.area17aa.org. Its’ been exactly a year since I took over these duties and it’s been a busy year.
The biggest change since our last Assembly has been the big move to our new web hosting company. This was undertaken to allow us to make better use of our email systems currently and provide more flexibility in the services we can provide in the future.
Some of you may have noticed that you have been getting mail from new mailing list addresses. Installing the mailing lists has really made it much easier to contact everyone in a more timely and efficient manner.
However there were some problems involved as well. I know many of you were expecting to move to a new email system as described at the last Assembly. Because of the problems we encountered during the move, this will not happening during this panel. The new system will go live with the start of the next panel when everyone can start fresh and not have to learn a new system near the end of their term.
This problem came about when it was discovered that we no longer controlled our old domain name. It is ours, but we can no longer access it to make changes, hence the move to www.area17aa.org. Rest assured that steps are being taken to insure we never have this problem again.
Frankly I think our new domain name is better anyway and has the advantage of following the format suggested by GSO.
Because of the timing of our discovery, we did have to continue our agreement with our old web hosting company for another year, but in many ways that is a plus as it allows us to finish this Panel with a minimum of disruption and the extra cost is minimal.
So, as you can see, much has happened during the last year, all of it aimed at improving our services to both the Hawaii Fellowship and those checking our site from all over the world.
So how are we doing?
Our statistics are current from the beginning of June 2008 (the move took place at the end of May) and show we are averaging between 500 and 800 unique visitors a month. We have had visitors from Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Japan, Ireland, Argentina, the Russian Federation, the Netherlands, Germany, and even one from the Ukraine! Pryvit!!!
In addition to the move, a proposal to modify the Structures and Guidelines where it concerns the website has been submitted to the Area. By the time you read this, we may already have voted on the measure.
Thanks again for letting me be of service to Hawaii Area 17.
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