Here’s the Short Story: To find a Page, check the Page Links in the upper-right corner of the Page, and click the one you want.

Why the Website is Different Than It Used To Be

It’s changing to better serve its primary purpose: enabling Members to find the information they need quickly and easily. Secondarily, to entice visitors to join MWBA. Casual visitors also want to find information quickly and easily. If they don’t, they might move to another club instead of another webpage.

Arizona’s anglers have many good options for bass clubs. But only one fishes on Wednesdays.

To be more specific, we want to make better use of Sections, Blocks and Buttons and links to organize and enable access to Page content that pertains to a single topic (e.g. Our Next Club Meeting) or a suite of related topics (e.g. Tmx pages). We are doing that to improve the website's display on phones and tablets.

As the website changes, we test it on three devices (iPhone, iPad, MacMini) because some Members don’t have a tablet or a computer with a big external monitor. They work on small screens (e.g., cell phone) that are hard to reading, especially for those of us in our declining years in terms of eyesight, memory, cognitive function, balance, strength, patience, tolerance, knot-tying ability, sex appeal, etc.).

Worse yet, some guys use Androids and non-Apple computers or tablets. “Luddites” comes to mind.

Are we making things better? We sure hope so, but it’s too soon to know. Change is usually unpopular. You must USE the website to become accustomed to the changes. If, over time, Members perceive a need to consider more changes, we will explore the options before making any decisions. One Member already said he wants the Old Site back. We’re not going back.

Reconstruction will take time due to limited labor, financial resources and intelligence. This website was built and is being maintained by novices — anglers, not professional website designers. To retain a professional, we’d have to significantly increase Membership Dues. That’s not an option. Squarespace is our Website Host, and the basic (less costly) subscription has design limits, just like we do. So does GoDaddy! — another popular Host — but they have Danica Patrick. Regardless, as long as the website meets the needs of our Members and visitors, it doesn’t need to be “improved” with bells and whistles that offer little to no value to us.

About browsers: Tinkering with the website has taught me that a wide range of browsers can take us around the Internet Al Gore invented, but our website displays better with some than with others. I’ve been an Apple Safari user for decades. While working on this website for the past month, I was surprised to find that on my Apple devices (Mac Mini, iPhone 15, iPad Pro), with my Settings and Preferences (yours probably are different), Google Chrome displays content better and performs certain behind-the-scenes tasks better than Safari, Explorer and DuckDuckGo. I don’t own stock in any of those browsers, and I really dislike Google’s intrusive AI and Google Docs. I didn’t intend to fall in love with Chrome for our website work (I still use Safari for everything else), and I have no idea why Chrome works better for me. But I’m ruthless about riding the horse that best gets me where I want to go. However, Chrome might not work better on your device(s). If you have the time, try Chrome, Safari, Explorer and DuckDuckGo to see which one works best on your device(s).

Tech Hint Learned the Hard Way: Sometimes display issues are caused by browser settings, not by website flaws. Now, when my browser or website behaves erratically, before I cry wolf about poor design or technology, I clear my browser cache and cookies. It’s amazing what a good housecleaning can do — sometimes! If you don’t know how to clear your browser cache, Google AI Search is your best Tech Support. See, I am ruthless. I use AI with Google Search because it performs better than any search engine I've tried.

Since I’m doing the reconstruction, if you have problems with the website, please don’t curse or complain to anyone else. Let me know what isn’t working for you.

Terry B. Johnson, MWBA Secretary (secretary@midweekbassaz.com)