IT Working Group

Need Support?

If you're looking for IT Support then please open a ticket or email your query to it.support@british-caving.org.uk. This will open a ticket that you can track online and will make it easier for us to help you. If you want to discuss the IT Group itself then you can get in touch with the Convener at it@british-caving.org.uk.

What we do

The IT Working Group is a group of volunteers that:

  • manages and coordinates BCA’s IT infrastructure
  • commissions and implements IT projects as deemed desirable for BCA
  • provides a resource of IT expertise available to BCA
  • provides Web Services to BCA members as seems desirable

Membership

Members are “invited” to the IT Group on an annual basis (but in practice we're always looking for new members, see below). Our current roster is:

Member Focus
Ari Cooper-Davis (Convener) General
Angus Sawyer Server infrastructure
David Gibson Membership management
David Cooke Web services
Matt Voysey Web services
Gary Douthwaite Front-facing sites
Andrew Mcleod General
Les Williams Advisory

Get invovled

We're looking for a diverse team to help us work through our exciting projects. It's a great opportunity to get involved with your national governing body, and learn and share some new skills, whilst also building up your CV.

We're particularly looking for people who have web development experience, with languages such as PHP and SQL, in linux server environments. But if you have something else to bring to the table then please do still get involved.

If you're interested then I would love to hear from you by email at it@british-caving.org.uk.

Projects

The most pressing projects are adaptations to enable the BCA to continue to operate in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. These include:

  • eAGMs
    • Sourcing and licensing video-conferencing software for AGM participants
    • Identifying, testing, and implementing a workflow for live-streaming the AGM for members who wish to attend but not participate
    • Developing an online voting system to support voting from the membership at the AGM
      • This will require developing a method for updating member email addresses - at the moment BCA Online is not synchronised to the membership database, so we need to either get BCA Online back up-to-date or develop a new method for members to update their email addresses.

Next, there's a strong membership demand for modernisation, collaboration, and improved services for members. As such the next cohort of projects are to meet this demand, including:

  • Deploying a new public facing website to replace this Wiki.
  • Deploying a new membership administration system to replace BCA Online.
  • Developing a new online proposal system in which members can open AGM proposals for online seconding and debate, much like a structured forum.

And finally there are the projects we'd like to tackle that add value for members, but aren't urgent in nature, such as:

  • Developing an attendance tracking system for Council Meetings and AGMs so that group members and CIMs can easily follow how well represented they are within the BCA. This would also make life easier for the secretary.
  • Consult with other committees and working groups to bring their projects to the attention of IT Group volunteers so that we can support and develop them, such as: