Well, it's a new day and the new look has been inplace for a year now. We hope you've had a chance to use the site. This page attempts to provide you with the same overall view of this site that the designer has.

First, we concentrated on the organization of the material. We looked at everything we needed to tell people, and tried to anticipate everything they'd want from us. When we'd done that, it seemed the best way to divide it up was from the "customer's" viewpoint. The "customer" was one of the following: coach, athlete, parent, race official, club officer, mountain representative, USSA representative, or "other." The various sub-directories were then set up for each type of visitor -- About VARA; Athletes & Parents; Coaches; Clubs -- or for each type of task -- the Race Packet; Latest News; Announcements; Race Calendar.

About VARA is the first section. Every website has an "About" section and this one has all the usual stuff: contact information, history of the organization, mission statement and philosophy, board of directors list, phone numbers, emails. We realize that this information, while important and should be posted, is probably only read once. We would hope that you got a chance to read "VARA ~ A Brief History" but we also know that, realistically, you just wanted a phone number.

Athletes and parents should go to the Racer section. Scholarship information, athlete forms, pictures of racers, vouchers for race entries, lists of rules, copy of the Comp Guide, etc. (It was decided that Pictures merited a separate heading up top because athletes would want to go directly there without intervening steps.)

Coaches and Officials section: Membership forms, rules, race packets, along with some descriptive text that teaches coaches about the realtime calendar and announcement page and some of the ramifications of that calendar for them. There are links to the Comp Guide, Officials' Guide, FIS rules, master packet of forms. Many of these links are in the race packet below, too.

Club List: From this list, one can get to the details for any of the clubs. From there, one can get contact information, list of races sponsored by that club, and lists of athletes who are members of that club.

The race packet contains anything we felt would be of use to officials running a race. It needed it's own space because of the amount of material. It has everything: gatekeeper cards, timer manuals, factsheets, lists of racers who receive comped entries, and all of the guides and manuals from the 2002 Alpine Officials' CD.

For the first time, VARA is making use of Active Server technology to give you news, event, race, and result information. What does this mean? This means that changes can be made to the information and you can see the results immediately, instead of having to wait for me or the other webmaster to rewrite web pages. Any authorized club can update their information at any time. When you visit their page, and read their information, you see the new info.

You can see inspection or registration times, trail assignments, and captains' meetings. The most up-to-date stuff is here and we couldn't be more proud. (Well, we could be more proud, but that's another story).

The News Index page is intended to be a quick reference to upcoming events and the most recent announcements. If an something is newly posted or updated, Updated appears on the right.

The Announcements page displays the announcements in order - most recent, first. To simplify the display and make it easy to scan all the messages this page shows only the beginning of a message; longer messages can be opened and read or printed off singly. Entry lists will be posted here, among other things, eliminating the need for frantic friday phone calls.

Click on "Event List" to see all of the events for the season in list form. The events are sorted by date.

Some people like to see the events listed in calendar form. Those folks should go to the "Event calendar." The month shown when you first visit has been set by the program. As with the list view, click on an event for details and if an event is newly posted or updated, Updated appears on the right.
Clicking on an event or announcement brings up more detail. A racer (or parent) can print this page easily, especially if the switch is made to "printer - friendly" pages.
Also, one can "set filter" which allows the viewer to select certain age groups to view, ONLY j3 for instance! When you go back to the calendar, all other age groups are hidden. Print out the whole season.

In Member Services, check athlete lists, get links to the USSA points pages, check on membership renewal status, and log in to the system, if you have an account.

What do you think? How can the VARA website service our membership better? What would you like to see? What did you need to do here that you couldn't? Follow the "comments" link at the bottom of this or any page to tell us more.

Thanks for reading.
We'll wait for you at the summit.