Here are a few notes that will hopefully be helpful to those using the forum, especially those wanting to use it for the first time.
Read the terms and conditions and accept (subject to your agreement).
You will then be taken to the registration screen - complete the details, bearing in mind the following:
Username: it is best to use one that others can recognise, eg. I have chosen 'JessH'.
Password: Enter a password of your choice.
NB: You will need to remember your username and password whenever you want to log onto the forum.
Copying the numbers and letters in the image: You may wonder why you have to copy what you see on the screen (the strange jumble of letters and numbers) - this is one measure against machine spanning, that sort of image is human readable only.
Press 'Submit'.
The registration is now complete and you will see a message telling you that your account has been created and that the forum requires account activation by the administrator (me). This is another security measure to stop unwanted members posting to the forum (forums are subjected to continual spamming - people use them as a means of propagating their web site urls as widely as possible in order to improve the ranking in search engine results, not to mention advertising their dubious wares in posts!)
NB: Although the message also tells you that the administrator will receive an email to prompt account activation - I recommend that you email me personally (jess.hemming@virgin.net), particularly if your username isn't obvious, so that I don't delete you by mistake!
Enter your user name and password and press 'Log in'
You will be taken to this screen:
To enter the main forum page, you can either select 'board index' or if you wait a moment or two you will be taken there automatically.
Once you are logged in you can select a subject (click on a heading, eg 'Cycling General'), you will then be taken to a screen with the topics under that general heading - again click on the topic title to see the 'posts'.
You will see buttons to start a new topic or post a reply:
Just click on one of these and the rest is fairly straight forward
One final point - DON'T FORGET TO LOG OUT ONCE YOU HAVE FINISHED
Any problems, just send me an email: jess.hemming@virgin.net.