Welcome to Suffolk County Council's new web site!

March 10, 2010: Calendar Tips. Some people have had difficulty finding entries in the calendar. Here are some tips that some find useful.

  • Select the Agenda view. This lists events in a vertical manner starting with the current date. Event descriptions are much more readable using the Agenda view.
  • Next to the tab for the Agenda view is a little button with a down-arrow (v). If you click this button you'll see that each District has its own calendar. Uncheck the calendars that you're not interested in viewing and the number of calendar entries is reduced to only those in which you are interested.
  • It seems that many people are interested in finding training events. Unfortunately, filtering of the calendar isn't possible when it is embedded in a web page. We've done the next best thing by starting each training entry with the word "Training". This should make it easier to spot training events.

Please keep your ideas and questions coming using the Contact the Webmaster form.

March 5, 2010: Minor housekeeping changes implemented. Please keep your ideas and questions coming using the Contact the Webmaster form.

  • Districts were moved off the slider on the right side of the page to the main menu bar. We encourage Districts to keep their pages up-to-date by emailing changes to the Webmaster.
  • The main menu bar was reorganized to make the flyout tabs more manageable.
  • More Scout Shop info is now provided when you click on the Scout Shop button on the home page.

March 2, 2010: Keep those suggestions coming! Here are some tweaks based on your feedback! Please keep your ideas and questions coming using the Contact the Webmaster form. Thanks again for your ideas!

Here are the latest changes:

  • People were having difficulty finding the Internet Rechartering and Internet Advancement links. They were a bit buried under Resources on the slider. Resources is now gone! In its place is a slider entry named Advancement/Recharter Unit Internet Services. Guess what is there? Internet Rechartering and Internet Advancement links!
  • Two other links used to be listed under Resources and they have been moved. The link for the Activities Committee Forum has been added to the top navigation bar: Program -> Activities -> Activities Forum. A link to a page with a list of various BSA sites was moved to the slider entry named Docs/Forms/Fliers

February 18, 2010: More changes based on your feedback! Please keep your ideas and questions coming using the Contact the Webmaster form. Thanks again for your ideas!

Here are the latest changes:

  • Discrete tabs have been replaced by a tab bar to accommodate "flyout" tabs (see next bullet).
  • The clunky blue Program-related buttons have been removed in favor of flyout tabs. You'll notice that there is a down-arrow next to the Program tab. Hover over the Program tab and you will open flyout tabs beneath the Program tab. Hover over a flyout and you'll see more options. Every page on the entire site is now accessible from the home page via tabs/flyouts or the slider on the right side of the page.

February 5, 2010: Thanks for your recent feedback! We've made some additional changes based on your input. Please understand that not every suggestion has been implemented or implemented in the manner suggested. Scouting has a lot of areas of interest and very often we, as individuals, deal only with one or two of those areas. Of course, we tend to believe that the areas we're involved with are the most important and deserve top attention! Can you imagine what the home page would look like if we tried to give everything top billing? Chaos! So, please be understanding and keep your ideas and questions coming using the Contact the Webmaster form. Thanks again for your ideas!

Here are the latest changes:

  • Scout Service Center address, phone number, and fax added to home page. Also phone numbers for the Scout Shop and Baiting Hollow Scout Camp.
  • Some Program-related content was difficult to find, so we've added a row of blue buttons to the home page that will take you to primary program areas. You can still get there using the Program tab, but the buttons should help you navigate to program content quicker. Certain program pages will also have a row or two of blue buttons that will take you to sub-program detail pages.
  • Two yellow buttons were added. One is for BSA online training (eLearning), a very useful site. The second is a shortcut to the Suffolk County Council Forum moderated by our Activities Chairman, Rocco Prichinello. The Forum is an informal information exchange site.
  • Information related to Eagle Scouts was removed from the Advancements area and moved to the Slider on the right side of the home page. Read more about the Slider, below.
  • Another category has been added to the Slider - Docs/Forms/Flyers. In this section is a link to BSA's National Forms page along with a number of relevant Council items. District Docs/Forms/Flyers can be found either on the District pages (accessed via the Slider) or embedded in a calendar event.
  • The site search engine was updated to JRank, which works better thank Google for a small site like ours.
  • We'd like to remind you that you can be notified of web site changes via RSS or Twitter. Click the yellow Follow button on the home page.
  • We also want to extend a big Scouting thanks to Eagle Scout Andrew Prichinello. Andrew, a student at Marist College and son of our Activities Chairman Rocco Prichinello, designed the headers for the primary pages. Thanks Andrew!

January 27, 2010: The web site has been updated with a new design and several new features:

  • News Scroller - In the upper left corner of the home page is a news scroller. The scroller identifies new or timely items or events. Click on any scroller item and you will be taken to the relevant content.
  • Tabs - Major content can be accessed by clicking on the tabs at the top of the page. The Program tab will lead you to information from the Council's five primary program areas - Activities, Advancement, Camping, Training, and Venturing.
  • Information Slider - The right side of the home page features a slider for access to commonly used and infrequently changing information. Click on a category - Directories, for example - and a number of links are available to take you to relevant content, in this case various directories with contact information.
  • Council Calendar - Click on the yellow Calendar button and you will display the Council calendar. This is a Google calendar that is easy to maintian. You can also synchronize the Council calendar with your own personal calendar if you use iCal, Outlook, Android, BlackBerry or several other calendar products. You can find more information about Google Calendar here.
  • RSS Feed - RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It can help you stay up-to-date with what is going on with the Suffolk County Council, BSA web site. Clicking the yellow Follow button on the home page will take you to an area where you can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite reader or email client. When we make important changes to the web site we will update the RSS feed and an update will be 'pushed' to your reader. No need to constantly check the web site - the changes will be sent to you via the RSS feed! A link is published with each feed update. Click on that link and you will be taken directly to the new web site content. It sounds a bit complicated. It's not! And it is the best way to stay current on web site changes.
  • Twitter Feed - Twitter is anther "push" technology that can keep you up-to-date on web site changes. Clicking the yellow Follow button on the home page will take you to an area where you can subscribe to our Twitter feed. You need to have a Twitter account to take advantage of this feature. When we make important changes to the web site we will update the Twitter feed and an update will be 'pushed' to your Twitter account. No need to constantly check the web site - the changes will be sent to you via Twitter! This is a great way to stay current on web site changes.
  • Search - Next to the RSS button is an open field next to a magnifying glass icon. This is the search area. Enter any word(s) that you are interested in, click the icon, and the entire SCCBSA web site will be searched for your input values. This is a local search. It searches only our web site, not the entire internet. Search functionality will be ineffective for the first few weeks following the site launch since this is a new web site and it takes the Google crawlers some time to discover and index the site.
  • Subpages - All non-tabbed pages are launched as subpages. That is, they launch in a separate window. How can you tell if you're on a sub-page? A red X will appear in the upper right corner. Click on the red X to close the window when you're finished using it. If you try to open a subpage and it doesn't seem to want to open for you, chances are you forgot to close a subpage earlier in your session. Check your open browser windows to see if you left another subpage open, then close it by clicking on the red X.
  • Contact the Webmaster - In the bottom right corner of every page is a link to contact the webmaster. Click this link, fill out the form, click Submit, and your comments will be directed to the webmaster. Please include a valid email address in the form if you would like a direct response.