Lions clubs from Western Australia to Tasmaina and north to Queensland have availed themselves of the free offer published in our June-July issue of The Lion made by the Lions of Turkey MD 118 to host a Web page withassistance from the Lions of Brisbane Ekibin in attending to the spade work in setting up the site. To date approximately 100 clubs have had pages set up.

Some have gone ahead with a bang, improving the presentation of their sites, whilst others are advancing at a much more leisurely pace. The introduction to cyber space is similar to the introduction of the motorcar - initial reluctance to accept until it becomes part and parcel of your daily life - air travel also had a similar history

The question has been asked why the individual clubs could not set up the site themselves if Brisbane Ekibin found it thaf easy The answer is simple - It tales approximately a day or two of reading and trial and error to set up a site

The experience gained in setting up the first site enables the second to be completed in quicker time and it gets quicker as you find quicker ways of doing the job.

Ekibin have been able to link flags and other graphics to more than one site, thereby saving on utilisation of the browser A rapport has also been established with Dr Enzar Tore and the Turkish Lions who control and monitor Lionwap

This has enabled Ekibin to request the introduc- tion of our favorite musical tunes as background music when the page is opened. Aussie Lions now have a choice of three versions of Waltzing Matilda and two version of Advance Australia Fair.

Dr Tore has approved the use of java applets and in the near future our sites will be better presented.

Ekibin have learned to improvise - setting up photo albums of over a hundred good quality photos when Lionwap only allows a mere 10 of low quality. Ekibin was also able to quickly manipulate imagery due to availability of proper software and expertise In other words specialisation has its advantages.

The service meted out by Ekibin has surprised some of the clubs and many a message has been left on the Brisbane Ekibin web page. Numerous E-mails too have been received and here but a few

Grenfeli Lions Club (N4) - The Lions Club of Grenfeli sincerely thanks the Lions Club of Brisbane Ekibin fOr their assistance with setting up ourF new web site.

Without their inspiration and assistance we would never have commenced this activity - Thanks fOr everything.

Cleveland Challenge Lions Club ( Q1)- Thank you Thank you Thank you - What a great page you have yourselves and what a great effort you are doing to get more clubs online.

Cleveland Challenge is very graateful for what you did with our page - You deserve a medal Lions Club of Toronto, (N3) - The Lions Club of Toronto greatly appreciates the assistance that Ekibin has provided in setting up our website.

The Lions Club of Palmwoods-Woombye (Q4) - On behalf of President Geoff and the members of the Lions Club of Palmoods- Woombye Inc. I would like to post our sincere appreciation for your help in getting our website up and running so quickly Within TWO HOURS of contacting you our site was live - now that's real service for you. To the President and Members of the Lions Club of Brisbane Ekibin "Thank You" the service you are providing to Lions worldwide is nothing short of fantastic.

Lions Club of Port Sorell (T1) - Congratulation on taking up the challenge on behalf of Australian Lions. You have done Dr Enzar Tore and the Lions of Turkey proud. Port Sorell is very happy with the progress made in such a short time. Only five Tassie Lionwap pages to date - go for it - we will spread the World to other clubs.

Further to the Port Sorell story the club has now established its own "Peace Bridge" to Turkey, which is well worth a visit via a link on the club's home page (http://portsorellau lionwap org) (no www needed here) There's also a link on the Lionwap home page as well. Club member Paul Goldsmith also recently visited Turkey and caught up with Dr Tore in what was a most interesting meeting. Port Sorell Lions Lady Marie McCulloch has been involved in the club's website and encourages other Lions clubs to visit it and have a look at what can be done with a little effort

Other sites that Ekibin Lions believe have been improved since initial establishment and are a credit to their respective Webmasters are Grenfell (www.lionwap org/grenfell.au); Doncaster (www.lionwap org/Doncasterau); and Palmwoods- Woombye (www.lionwap.org/Palmwoodswoombyeau). Ekibin has been attending to a fair amount of maintenance work on sites set up, but believes that the Webmasters should now make an effort to learn the basics of programming to maintain the site.

All information on how this should be done can be found on the Lionwap page at www.lionwap.org/index.php All it takes is some time and reading. Purchase of a book on HMTL may help too (these can be fund for as little as $2 second-hand), while obtaining a copy of the Microsoft Front Page programme is a definite advantage - this programme automatically converts into HMTL computer language anything that is typed in normal English. They can also look at the code on any web page in HMTL just by clicking on View>Source on the MENU (Ekibin had picked up many a trick by this method) - It's that simple Of course, Brisbane Ekibin will still help if you run up against any major problems, but try NOT to burden the club with routine maintenance And, remember Lionwap only accepts graphics with under 50kb in size This is a small file but you can do it with most pictures by changing the size and resolution, this can very easily be done on a software program called Adobe Photoshop. The same is possible by using Microsoft Photo Editor (This is part of the Microsoft Tools programme available on most computers as its part of the Microsoft Office Suite). Remember that the resolution in a photo should be only 72dpi. if you are using it for the net Screens only display this resolution, so higher resolution is not necessary and a waste.

Lions has a fair way to travel on the highways of cyber space to reach their destination as competent handlers of their computers. According to Brisbane Ekibin webmaster Lucian Goonetilleke, education should start at the top and then the it should push things down and gather momentum as it goes. "This will happen I guess but it has not yet in Australia," Lion Lucian said. "To date to our knowledge none of the pages that have been set up have had a visit from a district governor or for that matter from a zone chairman,. he said. "Alternatively if they have visited, they have not left a word of encouragement to the club on their guest book page." "In the United States and even in some countries in Asia, the district governors take a much more active interest in club websites and Brisbane Ekibin hopes that the same will happen in Australia in the near future," he said.