The forum web site has made a significant transition over the past year.

Where before it was primarily a listing of upcoming speakers, it has now evolved into a "broadcast media" in its own right.   Now that the site hosts Web Video we are able to broadcast to a much broader audience.

Though technically our web site video broadcasts can travel all over the world, practically speaking it is more significant they can be viewed in Salem, Portland, and by local people who don't subscribe to TVCTV cable television.

Consequently, Web Video has the potential of dramatically increasing our audience.

Another good feature of our Web Video is that, unlike TVCTV, our programs are now available online for as long as we want to broadcast them.    This may be unfortunate for the blundering politician who says something he or she later wishes would disappear, but it is good for our audience.

In addition to our web broadcasting we are also doing both video and audio podcasting.    There are a number of people who are downloading the audio of our programs to their portable media players (ie. iPods) and listening to the programs at their leisure.    There are others who are watching the video podcasts of our programming over portable devices that stream video.

The web site itself has undergone some recent improvements.

The site has a new Archive section where program schedules for past years, old audio and video broadcasts, and listings of board members from previous boards are listed.    Though there may not be a huge demand for this information, it is now available for anyone wanting it.

Already our archives have been useful to a number of people, including a professor from the University of Oregon doing academic political research.

And finally, the web site has a new Photo Gallery.    This feature allows our photos to be shown within the the forum site, rather than being hosted on another site (Yahoo) like it was before.    We hope to keep the Gallery updated with the most recent pictures of our activities.

Though this only touches the surface of the changes that are affecting the forum web site, it is enough for now.    I will keep you informed of other improvements as they happen.

Thank you all for the many kind words you have expressed about the work I have done on the web site.

Your encouragement is very much appreciated.

Gary