Dear All

I am currently working on the 2011 Year Book.

If you noticed a mistake had been made concerning any personal information in this years (2010) edition of the book please note the following points:-

DO email me any personal address or phone number changes AND let me know if a boat is being or has been destroyed.

DO NOT email me any of the following
Boat Name changes 
Change of Ownership
Newly built and named Boats 


Firstly, all the above information comes to me in the form of a copy of the RYA measurement certificate issued to you whenever you register changes with the RYA or buy or sell a boat; i.e only if your boat is registered with the RYA can I make associated alterations to the book.

Secondly, I cannot do anything with sales information if the new owner is not a member of the MROA, or does not have a measurement certificate, with the exception of taking the boat number off your record in the book under Owners by Boat Number.

This will help alot - thank you

I understand that this is an awfull task to attempt, and that it's largely thankless, but will the inacuracies in boat name and ownership be corrected automatically then, or will that be amended at another time? the book is such a facinating look at the history of boats it would be a shame to have errors perpetuated for longer than necessary.

Lou, I don't want to give you any more work that you have already, but might it be an idea to publish on here a list of what the last say 100 boat numbers and designs were as there are a number of inacuracies in the current book? It would then be corrected by the many knowledgable people on here without flooding you with e-mails.

If you would like me to, I will do it for you?

To answer whoever :) is - the info that I use to update the book is a spread sheet sent to me from the treasurer, so as long the info he has from all paid up members is correct by the end of the year that is transfered over into the book via mail merge. I have to admit that this system has its flaws; I am not an expert in this area and even though I have been producing the book for five years now - using this method has left me tearing my hair out as columns jump and information gets mixed up. Yes It is a thankless task which does not get any easier.
Jeremy thank you for the offer but it would help if you could tell me which pages you refer to!? Perhaps we can talk.

Hi Louisa,
Please don't think I'm adding to the misery, but I'd suggest using the same database for all of the yearbook info, so it can be output into different forms for different purposes. Maybe someone reading this is a wizz on MS Access and could help export it from a spreadsheet into a database, then set up reports for the different outputs required?

I know you've told me the trigger for a name change is the form from the RYA which seems infallable, but two 70's boats I've sold still appear under my name - presumably because the new owners haven't informed the RYA, so there might still need to be a 'manual override' for these circumstances.
The other anomaly which seems to appear is that boat names in the Register of Boats don't automatically change when they're updated in the Index of Boat Names - suggesting that the system used doesn't draw on the same information for both. Ideally the owner, designer, bulder and name remain linked until a change is made. It may even be possible to 'lock' some information to avoid accidental deletions (something I do a lot!)

Sorry for chipping in if it's all irrelevant, but I'm on enforced 'shore leave' today!

Forget poxy MS Access and use a real normalised database (MySQL or SQL Server, whichever the main website uses) and host it with the website one. Then there's only one true data source for all to use.  
The database design's simple enough and all previous boat names could be retained as well as previous owners and their details. It would need web pages for admins to change it and for members to view whatever data they are allowed.
As I say design's easy, but it would take time to write and implement. If I was doing it as work (coz that's what I do) then I'd quote a month's work and probably do it in less depending on what's already set up on the website.
There certainly isn't one true data source as I've already notified the mistake in my address twice before and it's still been wrong this year!

pat2121 is right, although i cant see it taking a whole month to implement :) the data involved is quite modest in size, and its more than likely a script could be written to suck the data out your excell docs, and blasted straight into SQL - the rest is simple.

Such a system would allow for efficient proofing, editing, and autiding.

pat

please email me your correct address and i will update, for sure it should all be on one database and i will work with louisa to that end

thanks

also Km could you email me with your the current boats you own

The records are updated each year by either

People by cheque  -  the forms they send in

People paying by bankers order - i send out their sub confirmation and ask people to confirm their data


also the rya certs update new boats and ownership changes

also final chance for members who havent renewed just about to bring the axe on them in the records

details sent to money@

MS Access and SQL reports. Game on ;-))

Yes I really am a geek!!

You could port from spreadsheet or Access to SQL fairly simply in a day. But adding webpages to display and update this information, and an export process to generate the yearbook pages, is what would stretch the task out to a month.

(Don't tell anyone, but the website uses Access databases - we don't have SQL!)