[Cross-posted on the current CCA message board, the new forums (message board), and chipboard.com]

Hey, everyone. I'm back from my vacation and touched base with David and Mike (the web developer). Things are looking really good and I expect to be able to give you a firm publish date shortly. In the meantime, here are some highlights:

- New website: For those who care about such things, the new website will be hosted on a Windows server and site was developed using ASP.net. The forums will be hosted on a linux box in the Amazon cloud. There will be no hosting costs for at least the first year (both being donated).
- Current/Old website: The old club website and message boards will remain available via a different URL (web address TBD).
- Message Board/Forums: In the interest of time and moving forward, we've decided to go ahead and use my chipcollectors.org site as the club message board, which many of you (73 as of today) have already signed up for and visited. Feedback on the look & feel, ease of use, and features (there's a LIKE button! Yay!) have been great. All reported issues were resolved long ago. If you haven't already done so, go sign up for an account now. You do NOT need to be a member to sign up for an account. There will be member accounts and non-member accounts. Without an account, you'll have SOME access as a "guest", but super limited. Since the forums are on a different server than the website (for now) and I'm going to TRY and make sure the URL reflects ccgtcc.com and not chipcollectors.org, but users shouldn't really care and please don't be bothered by it. Account IDs are the user's email address. This is separate from the "Display Name". Users will be required to use their real name in their display name, not a "handle" or "alias", so if you already signed up on the site and didn't use your real name, please go update your profile (you can do this now - no need to wait for the official "grand opening"). Accounts with no real name will have limited permissions and will be deleted at some point if not corrected. There will be members-only sections, and each member account will be verified to grant added permissions. Adding your CCA membership number to your name or tagline will help CCA officers identify you as well. Some sections I originally added (humor, gripes, political discussions, etc) have been deemed to be inappropriate for the CCA site (all together now... ), so those are hidden for now. Please check out the site as it sits now and give feedback. There's a suggestion box sub-category under "Club Business". That would be the place to post suggestions, including categories you'd like to see, features to add, and so on. Spam should be pretty much non-existent since you have to have an account to post, and accounts have to be approved. I've rejected somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 account requests from obviously fake requestors. I may disable the approval requirement for a short period to let everyone get signed up more quickly and immediately, and just review each new account as they come in.
- Buying/Selling/Trading: The club policy remains as it has in the past. No buying/selling of chips can take place on the CCA website or its forums. There is a section for trading.
- Pictures: Thousands of pics from past conventions have been loaded into the photo gallery.
- Timing: When we go live, there's always the possibility that something will go horribly wrong (haha), so we may have to unflip the switch and revert to the old site while we fix whatever issue pops up. So, if you see it going back and forth, that will be the reason. Be patient.

Those of us working on this project all have our personal ideas and preferences, but it's really up to the members of the CCA to help shape what the site looks like and what services it provides, so please don't be shy about giving feedback. If you want to give suggestions privately rather than on the forum, feel free to email me directly and I'll post them for discussion (anonymously) and present it to the powers-that-be for review.

Let's make the CCA website and forums become the de-facto place for collectible collectors to visit and collaborate, and help the club start a hockey-stick upward growth curve.

Lastly, I appreciate your patience with me/us during this transition. When we get past this next step, I'm going to introduce you to Mike because he hasn't been getting the credit he deserves for all of his hard work.