Statistics

Ten years on, and DepList seems busier than ever. We have 229 current Full Members and 17 Associate Members. (And my record books contain a further 300 assorted lapsed members and rejected applicants). Some people dip in and out of DepList, letting their membership lapse for a time and then rejoining. There are two or three who've been with us since the very beginning. I'm not sure when the beginning was, but it was probably circa 1999, and after an experimental period we officially launched our full service and website in 2000. We have twice changed our messaging service provider, and I hope we never have to do that again as it was an almighty upheaval! Our advertising service generates quite a bit of work: about 90 separate outside organisations have advertised through DepList, some of them repeatedly.

December is always the busiest month, but this year we broke our records with 111 messages during the month (though that number does include "position filled" messages).

I would like to develop the website to make the Members' Area more interactive. For example, it would be good if Members were able to update their profiles instantly and to upload their own images, sound files, videos and links. Unfortunately, this requires specialist programming skills that I don't have. Maybe one day there will be ready-made solutions available to enable non-techies like me to create what I have in mind.

Happy New Year!