What the heck...my first real attempt at something viable and non-campy

A sky back ground would would work well with the cream tables. Very nice site indeed!

I guess this isn't bad if you're just looking to work on your PERL skills. THe design does show some potential, but there are a lot of things that need to be fixed:

1. Find a better colour scheme - white and cream are really low contrast and don't catch they eye too much
2. Those dark shadow/bevel things on the cream parts really need to go
3. Get a better logo - maybe look for an airplane dingbat and desing your logo around that.
4. Overall the layout is rather uninteresting - it's just a series of boxes, stacked on top of one another. Try to create more vertical interest, which will make people more likely to scroll down and see your content. Another problem is the size of the header box - it's too big and doesn't allow for much content to show above the fold.

Good point about the header area...I thought this was too big also. I decreased the size of the graphic that displayed which in turn tightened up the header frame. As a side benefit, the file sizes were ~1/4 the original so people are thinking that I moved to a faster server cause the pages are loading faster. ;-P

As for the colors, my intention was to not make the background stick out (cream/white) whereas the text does (navy/cream); it's mainly a technical data site. Besides, my other intent was to minimize user eye-strain; cream is slightly easier on the eye than black on bright white.

As for vertical interest, I though I sorta did that by placing things into 2 rows seperated with a vertical bar that extends the length of the text area. If you have a suggestion, please send it along to me...I have a couple of ideas but nothing that is screaming out at me yet.

You don't like my beveled edges... I worked one these more than I should have since my first batch were >50 pixels wide (X2 - right/left) and was taking away ~1/3 of the text display area inside (at low res)! I will have a hard time letting them go as they are more of a personal display of triumph (graphic cutting/table formatting/etc.). It gives the site a unique look, I think.

As for a logo, I am working on that but you know how that goes. It takes quite awhile to get something that I really like that 1) is visually unique, 2) is visually attractive, and 3) looks good at a large as well as a small size.

Thanks for the input. Keep'em coming.

You have no meta tags for search engines to index. Also, take advantage of "alt" tags for your graphics to (1) make your site more accessible to a visually-impaired person using a text reader and (2) reinforce keywords on your site for (hopefully) better search engine results.

I'd make the page title "Sailplane Soaring and Combat" instead of just "Soaring : Home", as some search engines place more weight on titles.

And since I used to race r/c cars, I know what r/c stands for. And I presume your target audience knows as well, but when searching, they might use the term "radio control" or "radio controlled" so I'd make sure they were used somewhere, as well as in your meta tags. Also, I noticed sometimes you use r/c and sometimes you use R/C. Be consistent.

The "photos" page took an eternity to download on my lowly little 33.6 dial-up. I'd suggest that having over 200 thumbnails on one page is too much. I'd break it down into several pages of "galleries". Again, don't forget the "alt" tags. And you should specify height and width tags for all images. This allows the browser to set aside a "placeholder" and continue loading the page, otherwise it has to wait until it's done reading everything to display anything. I had a blank page until it was completely done loading.

Maybe consider using a javascript to make the larger images pop up in new windows. As it is, after viewing a larger image, I had to use the "back" button and then wait for the photos page to reload.

I agree with Megan Jack about the color scheme and black shadows/bevels. And a well designed logo is absolutely the most important graphic you can have, as it sets the tone and identity for a site.

I disagree with 1st about using a sky background. I have a site for a USAF veterans group and have spent a lot of time perusing aviation sites. I can't tell you how many of them use the exact same sky/clouds background to the point where it is really cliched, in my book.

I was a little put off by the blatant request for donations. I, too, abhor banner ads, and have none at any of my sites. But to ask people to send you money to offset your $16/mo. cost of running the site seems slightly tacky to me. Perhaps a better approach would be to ask "Are you interested in sponsoring this site?" I would think that displaying a sponsor's banner on the site in exchange for them donating prizes for your contests, etc., would not be out of line and is not the same thing as running banner ads from an advertising service. It would also seem to add credibility in the eyes of visitors to your site if, say an r/c supplier like Tower Hobbies actually donates prizes for you to give away.

Or perhaps you could offer to create and host a one-page mini site to various flying clubs for a modest fee for those clubs that don't have a site of their own. Just a thought.

Good luck with the site!

I made the home page title change...I was contemplating this as well but wanted to see what others said first.

Good idea on the loading of larger pictures to a seperate target window. Since this page is mainly generated via a PERL script I wrote, I just added TARGET="_new" and it was done. Again good idea. I had set up something similar to this for my off-site links area but it didn't ocvcur to me to do the same here.

Also, I added the meta tags but only to my homepage. Is this "good enough" or do I need to place them on all my pages?

As for offering space to other clubs, 1) there are other people doing that solely and 2) I just don't have the space for other sites.

Thanks for the input. Keep it coming.

Adding your metatags only to the homepage has one advantage:
When search-engines return your page, visitors will start at your homepage and not somewhere , let's say 5 nav-levels further.

Overall: I have to agree with Megan Jack. Especially the colorscheme-thing.

BTW: Great use of tables!

Kewl...I want people to enter on the home page as this is the main navigation page.

I think I see what you guys are talking about with the beveled edge:

The effect only really looks good if the table area is small enough for the whole table to be seen. Otherwise, on large tables (eg: the home page) if you scroll down halfway, you see a gradient black->cream line down the left hand side. Hmmm, gunna have to think about how I want to approach this one.

I think I also see what you guys are refering to about the color scheme; cream/white:

The problem, as I think everyone sees it, is that the cream color is not dark enough to REALLY offset the white border area (eg: the home page; similar to problem above but here it's the flipside...literally). The problem is that I don't want to go too dark. My intent was to simply "tone down" the intense white backgrounds. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I am going back through the site and implementing some graphic changesand researching some navigation icons. I want to tighten up the navigation links areas to be 1 line instead of 3.

Thanks for the input so far. Keep'em coming.