About this website

CCANET.net, which replaces the previous CaribbeanConservation.org website, has been re-designed to provide a number of services to meet the expectations of the members of the Caribbean Conservation Association (CCA) and address many of the critiques received from them in the past. The road map of these features and changes are explained below.

Structure

Domain name:

The name was shortened to "ccanet" to facilitate the use of email addresses. Typing "caribbeanconservation" is a bit too lengthy for typing email addresses. Secondly, the Top Level Domain (TLD) was also changed from "org" to "net" to reflect the nature of CCAs work as a network and not just an organisation.

Server:

When the domain name was changed, the CCA also moved into new a home. CaribbeanConservation.org continues to be hosted on servers at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, in Barbados. CCANET.net is now hosted on commercial servers in Hong Kong. The two site are linked. Irrespective of which URL is used, this website will appear. The move also opened a wide door of information services which can be delivered to members. More importantly, the new company offers and exceptionally high quality of customer service. They respond to problems and fix them expeditiously, irrespective of what hour it is - day or night. They operate a true 24-hour service and our experience has been an average 9-minute response time.

Essentially, then, the move to new servers is the foundation for the new services which can be delivered to members, which meet their expectations, and which addresses their critiques. What are these services? Read on.

Member Services

News flow:

Members, partners, and the media no longer have to wait until the CCA publishes its periodic newsletter to find out what is happening at the Barbados Secretariat. It offers a free online subscription to CCA News. New Releases and periodic newsletters about the work of the CCA and its programmatic areas are published here. Click on the link above and subscribe.

How does this differs from the CCA-Members list? 

• The CCA-Members list is for members only; CCA News is for anyone in the world interested in environment and conservation and wish to stay abreast of developments in the Caribbean;
• The CCA-Members list allows interaction and discussion among members on a variety of subjects; the CCA News is a one-way publication list, the chatter and discussion are removed so that email boxes of non-members do not become cluttered with unwanted mail.

Email addresses:

CCANET.net runs its own email server. All current (paid up) members of the CCA are entitled to one free email address which can be accessed either via the web or via your favourite email programme (such as Outlook Express). To access via the web, you go to the CCANET.net home page and click "Check-Email" on the banner (see illustration). To sign up, click here. The mail server is lightning fast and very efficient. Email addresses are valid for one year and renewed on payment of membership dues.

News Posting:

CCANET.net runs its own online news database. This is a very powerful tool for posting news to the web. It is available to all programmatic areas of the CCA (for a fee) and to all members of the CCA who run their own websites (either for free or for a fee depending on the configuration required).

The single biggest advantage about using our NewsPro database is that it automatically updates the news on a website without you having to build web pages each time. In order to use this facility, you will require a half-day hands-on training session which will be provided at the annual general meeting each year. Sessions can be arranged outside of the AGM.

We teach you how to enter your news article and provide you with password access to a section of the database. We also generate a special code that you place on your website and every time you an article, your website is updated automatically. You can post in plain text or with pictures.

As a guide, have a look at the CCANET.net homepage. The item which appears on the homepage is the last article entered into the database. It displays the headline, source of the the article, and a 350-character summary  of the article. Click on the headline and the article pops up in a new window. At the bottom of each article is a facility to email it. On the right-handside of the page in the green column click on News & Information, that takes you to an archive articles. Article may be archived in chronological order, alphabetical order, or in time-periods. It's your choice. You can display summaries, headlines only, full articles. The choice is your. Then you can also put on your website a search engine to search this database. You can elect to confine the news just to your website, or you can share it with the CCA Members by having it also appear on the CCANET.net website also. For further information, please contact the webmaster.

Members' visibility:

Unlike traditional websites, CCANET.net does not provide a general links page. Those can be found at a dime a dozen all over the Internet. What we do provide is links to members websites, and those links get a premium position which is the homepage.

Webpages for members:

If members do not have a website, the CCA will provide a webpage on request for each current member. These pages can carry the News Posting feature as described above. Webpages are for a duration of one year and are renewed on payment of membership dues.

Website construction for members:

The CCA can construct complete websites for members. This is not a free service. Average rates for website construction and maintenance is US$85 per hour but the CCA will offer much lower rates and can also recommend a competent contractor if you require continuous maintenance and updating or your site.

Website hosting:

The CCA can host your websites through a sub-domain on CCANET.net. With a sub-domain, you get FTP access and full password protection. You also have access to your own cgi-bin to run your own scripts. You get password access to a live 24-hour technical support team to resolve any problems.  The CCA can also supply you with a full fledged domain name and email server. In the Caribbean this costs anywhere from US$690 per year upward. The CCA will offer significantly lower rates for the same quality service because it can purchase web space at wholesale rates for its members. The CCA has done all the shopping around among the scores of web-host providers and the association knows who is reliable, who has good value for money, and who has real-time and competent technical support and customer service. Concessional fees are renewable on an annual basis and applied at the time of renewable of membership dues. If membership dues are not renewed when they are payable, the CCA will bill at normal web-hosting rates.

Regional Calendar:

A regional calendar is available under the Members menu item (right hand green column) on the home page. You can have your upcoming activities posted here by sending a request to the webmaster. The value of this calendar is publicity at all levels. Users of this website read the calendar as well as members of the media. It provides story ideas for journalists who are always scouting for material. This is a powerful publicity tool, please use it prolifically.

Press Release Distribution:

Want to distribute your press release throughout the Caribbean but don't know where to send it? The CCA has compiled a comprehensive list of over 140 newsrooms which do business in the Caribbean. This password-protected tool makes press release distribution as simple as ABC. Just fill in the blank spaces on a form, click Submit and it's gone! Passwords are issued on request and are valid for a membership-year. They are renewed on payment of membership dues.

A demo press release distribution form is available for you to practise.

Letters to the Editor Distribution:

Letters to the Editor will become a useful tool in the events of region-wide campaigns. This facility makes the distribution as simple as ABC. Just like the tool above, simply fill in the blank spaces and off it goes! Passwords are issued on request and are valid for a membership-year. They are renewed on payment of membership dues.

Tutorial on Designing a Media Campaign:

There are three tools available to NGOs when they are designing media campaigns. These are Media Advisories, News Releases, and News Conferences. But what are they used for and when? An online tutorial takes you through the paces and guides you in designing an effective media campaign. An added bonus is a tutorial on how to write effective news releases. It gives insight into what the journalist and editor look for and how to write to capture their attention. This is a password protected tool. Passwords are issued on request and are valid for a membership-year. They are renewed on payment of membership dues.

Eco-Pipeline:

The Eco-Pipeline is an "intelligence information" tools intended to give members a "heads-up" on employment and funding opportunities in the region. Here you will find an orientation on donors and funding sources ... what funds are available, for whom, and how does one apply for them. Also are there contract opportunities arising? This is a password protected tool. Passwords are issued on request and are valid for a membership-year. They are renewed on payment of membership dues.

Daily Environmental News:

This is a daily news service which harvests environmental news from more than 128 online newspapers around the world. The categories we have available are: 

Environment General | Aids | Archaeology | Asteroids | Earthquakes | Genetic Engineering 
Greenpeace | Home & Garden | Natural Disasters | Natural Health | Nuclear | Pollution 
Public Health | Science General | Space | Water | Whales | Wildlife 

Select from the Daily News menu item on the right hand side.