Computer with modem:
You will need a computer - either at home, school, or work.
If you are buying a computer for the first time, do not buy anything less than a 486/33 - which can be bought for under $400. I recommend a minimum of a Pentium 100.
For a modem, you will need at least a 14.4, and I would not recommend anything less than a 28.8.
Online service or Internet Service Provider
Join an online service such as America Online, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc. Costs from $10 - $20 per month.
Join a free email service such as Juno. Cost: free, but is only email.
Join a local or national Internet Service Provider such as ATT Worldnet, Sprynet, Teleport
Work or school or library system. Check their policies. You may not get your own email address.
"email" is short for "electronic mail". Electronic mail is a process by which people send messages to one another over computer networks.
How to get email:
Join an online service such as America Online, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc.
Join a free email service such as Juno.
Join a local or national Internet Service Provider such as ATT Worldnet, Sprynet, Teleport
Work or school or library system. Check their policies!
Club Uses:
Find out your club members' email addresses and use email send out the club newsletter, recruit workers for events, etc.
Enlist a member with email to be the email contact for your club. List the club's email address on the AVA Web pages by sending it to walking@teleport.com
Print your club's email address on all your brochures and membership applications.
Send press releases directly to news media that take email submissions.
Send attached files - such as your brochure.
Communicate with other clubs, state organization.
Join Walklist email group and announce club events to the 700 subscribers.
For the future: Send reports and orders directly to the AVA National Headquarters. (not yet available)
A mailing list is a group of people. People on the list send mail to one another by addressing it to the entire group. Mailing lists are like Usenet newsgroups in this regard, but many of them are private.
What you need: email.
Automated mailing group sponsored and managed by Wendy Bumgardner.
Free subscription. Digest also available. Has been in existence for two years, has 700 subscribers. Only half of the subscribers are volksmarchers.
Purpose: Announce upcoming events, share stories about walks, discuss how to host an event, how to get in shape, how to deal with injuries, shoes, etc. Commercial-type announcements for products and tours are allowed once per month but must be kept to a paragraph.
Not allowed: No discussion of AVA policy or politics is allowed. This list is intended to attract new walkers to walking and to volkssporting.
To subscribe:
compose an email to the following address:
Put anything you like in the subject line.
In the body put only the following, with no punctuation or extra words:
subscribe walklist
You will then receive a message asking you to confirm your subscription by sending back a code line. Send this back exactly as the instructions in the message tell you.
For more details, visit the web page http://www.ava.org/walklist.htm
All messages sent to Walklist are publicly accessible from the Web at http://reference.com and are archived and searchable there.
http://www.reference.com/cgi-bin/pn/listarch?list=walklist@teleport.com
To provide a forum for civilized debate of AVA policies and politics, currently over 120 people.
To subscribe:
compose an email to the following address:
Put anything you like in the subject line.
In the body put only the following, with no punctuation or extra words:
subscribe ava-issues-L
No personal attacks on individuals are allowed - you are liable for any slanderous or libelous messages you send to the rest of the list.
Usenet is a collection of over 13,000 newsgroups. Most newsgroups do not contain "news" in the traditional sense but are forums in which people discuss a wide range of topics.
What you need to read Usenet:
Access: Most online services (America Online, CompuServe, Prodigy) have access to Usenet. Internet Service Providers provide access to Usenet. Some schools and businesses have access through their computer systems.
Software: The latest versions of web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape have a Usenet Newsreader built in. Online sevices have the software built-in. There are also shareware and freeware programs you can get to read Usenet.
The only walking-oriented newsgroup is
They allow announcements of upcoming walking events and discussions of volkssporting.
This is a good place to answer questions from the other people who post messages, and recruit them to volkssporting.
Bulletin Boards on America OnLine, Compuserve, Prodigy:
The online services all have bulletin boards which can be a good place to announce your walking events.
What you need: subscription to the online service.
Only other subscribers will be able to read these message.
Talk is a utility that lets you communicate with someone else on the Internet in a conversational, real-time manner. It is like a telephone call, except you are typing to one another instead of speaking.
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is a utility that lets you communicate in a comversational "real time" manner over the Internet. With IRC you can participate in conversations on hundreds of different topics. Each topic has its own "channel", like on a CB radio, and a channel can contain two people or dozens of people.
Walkchat:
Some volksmarchers have been using IRC for a weekly live chat. For information on joining in, contact myron@america.com or garyw@computek.net
What you need:
Internet Service Provider
IRC/Chat/Talk software.
The World Wide Web is an electronic web of files connected by hypertext links. Hypertext links are links that let you move from one file to another with a keystroke or a click of your mouse. The physical location of the files on the World Wide Web is irrelevant -- you can be reading a document from a computer in Portland, and follow a link to a related document in Australia.
What you Need to view the World Wide Web:
Computer with modem
Online service or Internet Service Provider
Software: Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer are the preferred programs.
Web sites to visit:
Volkssport and Walking Index http://www.ava.org
British Walking Federation http://web.city.ac.uk/~sa328/bwf/bwf.htm
Germany and European Events http://199.211.250.3/vm/vmwelcom.html
Canada http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Recreation/CVF/Walkschedule.html
Finland IVV Events http://www.suomenlatu.fi/ivvtap.htm
Walking site at Mining Company: http://walking.miningco.com
What you can find:
Calendars of volkssport events
Club web pages
Club email contacts
Information on tours, shoes, injuries, etc.
Using the AVA web site:
All club contacts are listed on the AVA web page, and all event contacts are also listed with the events.
Club email contacts can be listed by sending email to walking@teleport.com
Club web pages can be listed by sending email to walking@teleport.com
Your event or YRE flyer can be put on the web page to enhance your listing by sending it via email or diskette to Wendy Bumgardner, walking@teleport.com
You can enter event information directly on the 3-monthly area pages. http://www.teleport.com/~walking/calentry.htm
Updates are done as workload permits. Clubs can directly update their pages if they are competent in using FTP and other tools to manage a web site. Contact Wendy Bumgardner for access, walking@teleport.com.
What you need:
1. Computer
2. Software for creating websites: Web pages are simple text pages with format codes added. You can use any text editor to create a web page. Windows Notepad works just fine, but you may want to get an HTML editing program to make things easier. Microsoft Word 97, Publisher 97 and WordPerfect 7.0 all create web sites.
3. Adding graphics: To add a photo or logo, you will need to scan it with a scanner or draw it with a drawing program, then save it either as a GIF or a JPEG image. Newer graphics programs do that, but old ones don't.
4. Place to put your web site on the Web:
a. Online service: America OnLine, Compuserve, and Prodigy all provide "web space" for subscribers to put their web pages at no additional cost. Instructions are provided for creating web pages and putting them on the web.
b. Internet Service Provider: If you subscribe to a local or national Internet Service Provider, you will generally get "web space" provided. Ask them if you have web space and search for the instructions on how to put your pages on the Web.
c. AVA Web Space: If you have no other option, you can store your club pages in the AVA web space. If you are competent to upload the pages yourself via FTP, contact Wendy Bumgardner for access A HREF="mailto:walking@teleport.com">walking@teleport.com. If not, send the pages on diskette or by email to walking@teleport.com. However, you will not be able to update your pages here yourself - you must send any changes to me and wait until I have time to get to them.
5. Uploading your web pages: You will need an FTP program or method - some Internet Service Providers have tools to do this. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and means copying the files from your computer onto another computer that is on the Internet. A good shareware FTP program is CuteFTP.
Enter your web page URL and information into web search engines such as Yahoo and Excite and Infoseek so people will be able to find you.
Send an email to walking@teleport.com with the web page URL so it can be added to the AVA Club Web page list on the AVA web site.
Send an announcement to walklist@lists.teleport.com announcing your new club web site.
Place an announcement on the Usenet Newsgroup misc.fitness.walking announcing your new club web site.
Send a press release to your local newspapers, radio and TV stations announcing your new club web site. Include the URL of your web site in any press releases you send out to announce events in the future.
Include your web page URL on all your event flyers and brochures.
Club logo or photos of club members/events
Club contact information: address, officers names and addresses and phone numbers and email addresses. Be sure to link the email addresses to make them easy to use.
List of upcoming events with full information: Convert your event brochure into a web page to give full info. Include photos or maps to the event.
List of YRE events with full information: Convert your event brochure into a web page to give full info. Include photos or maps to the event.
Club meeting information: When and where, include a map and directions.
Previous minutes
Newsletter online
Club photo album online
List of other area events
Links to other walking web pages:
AVA Volkssport and Walking Index http://www.ava.org
Walking at Mining Compnay: http://walking.miningco.com
Links to other area/state club pages
PointCast now has it's PointCast Channel Builder available free in its latest release of PointCast.
Using the Channel Builder, a club can make up a newsletter - called a "channel". Readers can then subscribe to receive the "channel" newsletter on a regular basis, delivered to their computer automatically via the Internet. PointCast suggests that the newsletter be updated every couple of weeks. This is more flexible than email - you can easily include photos, logos, etc. When the subscriber signs on to the Internet, their PointCast program automatically looks for recent releases of the "channels" to which they have subscribed.
The tools to make the "channel" newsletters are free. A club would still need web space in which to store the files. Space is available on the AVA server. The club would need to have a member who was able to FTP the files to the AVA server. Contact Wendy Bumgardner for further details.
Present plans are to make each of the regional volkssport event calendars into PointCast channels, so that folks won't have to surf to find them, they will be delivered right to them each time they are updated. But this is an excellent way for a club to publicize their club events and happenings as well.
As this is a new aspect of the Internet, you will need to learn to market it so it is worth the effort put into it. It looks like once you have made a Web page it is a very simple and quick step to turn it into a Channel as well.
Walklist: email group dedicated to the fun and friendly aspects of walking. No "issues" allowed! Announce upcoming events, discuss walking. To subscribe, compose email to: majordomo@lists.teleport.com with the message: subscribe walklist
AVA Issues List: email group dedicated to discussing AVA policies and debating issues. No flames allowed - must not insult any other person or group. To subscribe, compose email to: majordomo@lists.teleport.com with the message: subscribe ava-issues-L
Walking at Mining Company: http://walking.miningco.com Weekly articles and hot links to articles of interest to walkers. Includes full resource library with links to articles on walking marathons, events, clubs, shoes, gear, sports medicine, nutrition, racewalking.
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