Ethan has been busy working on a major upgrade to the funbeach.com sidebars that will let us drag and drop which of the purple boxes show up on which pages.  Repeat visitors will be seeing a bit of change to the sidebars over the next few days as we decide which element fits best where. 

Coupons are all now database driven.  Addition of fall on and drop off dates allow us to pre-load offers without having to manually add and drop coupons on specific dates.  Offerings will now display a month before the valid start date and drop off on their expiry date.  Ethan also did some visual cleanup on the coupon page; of particular note is better support of long coupon names.

There were some great blog posts this week.  Fox News was a highlight.

As the Visitors Bureau’s membership drive winds down (final-final-last-chance for inclusion in the Beach Vacation Planner is Thursday, about 2:00 pm.), we’ve made changes to member information such as enhanced listings and photos.  New members won’t go online until late December, but we do our best to update changes in membership info as quickly as possible.  With more than 350 members, and a priority to get the Pocket Calendar and Beach Vacation Planner off to press, while still working on non-Visitors Bureau projects, we can’t promise those updates until late December.  If that creates a problem for you, let the Visitors Bureau know and we’ll see what we can do to get your changes done earlier.  If you have interest in full-color advertising in the Beach Vacation Planner, there’s still room; Keith can help you with that (360-642-4431)

4th Quarter Coupons will go live on Friday.  Ethan has been working integrating coupons into the new online database and I’m pretty excited about it this new site feature.  Here’s why:

1. Members who run a coupon will have an icon show up next to their business name.  Clicking that icon will show the print-friendly coupon.
2. Members will be able to specify end dates off our quarterly posting schedule and the site will automatically remove the coupon on the end date.
3. We’ll be able to present coupons individually, as a complete group, or by membership type (lodging vs. restaurants vs. services, etc.).
4. Coupons will sort randomly, meaning they’ll be in a different order each time you load the page.

These improvements should make both merchants and visitors happier with the coupon system.  Check yours Friday evening and, if anything looks awry, be sure to let us know.  If everything looks good, give Karl an atta-boy.  He’s taking care of all the data entry.

Meanwhile, Kara Funbeach has been busy talking with friends and fans on her own wall as well as the Long Beach Peninsula Visitors Bureau page.  We get some of our best local information from Kara’s friends.  If you’re not a friend and ‘liked’ the Visitors Bureau page, please do!

Keith came across this article on KATU today.  The writer said it was too stormy to go clamming last weekend.  Since Kara’s friends reported lots of good eats, we’re asking folks to comment on the story so KATU followers hear we’re not fair-weather clammers in the SW corner of the state!

We also keep the funbeach blog current with announcements and news clippings and blog posts about the area. Summer could be over but it doesn’t seem like our community has slowed down much at all.  We have an amazing community of volunteers, don’t we?

Keleigh