Our new web site has two main features. First, the whole site can be searched by typing key words into the box in the upper right hand corner labeled “Search Our Site.” This will find your terms wherever they are on the site: in the Contract, in Table Talk, and in other posts or discussions. Once you go to an article or post (including an article in the contract), try using your browser’s “find in page” feature to locate the exact place where your term appears. Using Firefox, the “find in page” command is under “Edit.” Or you can use the shortcut Command Key+F. (Actually, past issues of Table Talk are not yet available in a format you can search, but they will be soon. And new issues will all be formatted for the web page as well as our printed version.)

The second feature is that the whole site is essentially a blog, or a bunch of connected blogs. After just about every post, you can ask a question or leave a comment. UF E-Board members or others can reply. And this can then become a discussion that will also be searchable. So over time, we hope to develop a database of questions and answers on topics like benefits, leaves, banked load, evaluations, etc.

We still need to work out some of the details, and for a while, the new site will certainly be a work-in-progress. But we expect that it will already give UF members faster access to information, and over time, we hope it will develop into a terrific resource.

There are other features we’re planning; we need to update our list of links and some day we’d like to share video clips of key events. The site is nicely expandable and should give us lots of room to grow.

This website began with help from Professor Lee Montgomery, and was mainly created by CCC student Shahruz Shaukat (recently transferred to UC Davis but still providing technical support to the UF). We’ve used a freeware program called WordPress (www.wordpress.org).

Please let us know if you find bugs or outdated information, or if you have suggestions or comments. We have a new email address: uf@uf4cd.org. The old one will still work too for a while. (Incidentally, we have switched to 4cd from ccccd mainly because folks kept leaving out a “c” and having trouble reaching us.)