Syrbal's Site - More Information

This part of the site is a bit of a mixture of things. Here you will find more information about the site, about Syrbal (Derek),  who is the owner of the site, some important links, and some general links  you might find useful.

Please visit the Help sites and click through. Each click you make helps somebody, somewhere, and there is no cost to you.

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What's New (The Web site blog)

June 2010: I don't believe that I forgot to transfer my photos of Tamworth in May to my computer. So I've done that now and updated my Pictorial Review of 2010 (2010 - Midlands in Spring.)

May 2010: I've updated and finalised to date my Pictorial Review of 2010.

January 2010: During last month and the first couple of days of this month, I've updated and finalised the Pictorial Review of the Year 2009 - look for the and markers If you've visited before the beginning of December 2009.

November 2009: Update the photo pages for the Pictorial Review of the Year 2009, I still have quite a bit to do, but the structure is in place. Yes, I really haven't touched the site since July!

July 2009: With the success of the Pagan Central site, which are the web pages for the pagan community in the West Midlands and around, I've removed a lot of the brum information and pointed it there.

May 2009: 27th: Completed and uploaded the photo pages for the Pictorial Review of the Year 2009 so far. Updated the Birmingham Pagan calendar and events Reorganized  the menus on all pages for consistency, and ensured that the Album pages were linked instead of the Travel pages.

April 2009: 27th: Updated the Birmingham Pagan calendar and events

March 2009: 2nd: completed the review of the year 2008.
12th: Updated the Birmingham Pagan events page with lots of new events.

February 2009: 7 - 9th Completed the first five pages of my pictorial review of 2008, up to May 2008.
16th: Updated the Birmingham Pagan calendar and events
18th: Emergency update to Birmingham Pagan calendar and events.
26-28th: Updated the review of the year 2008.

January 2009: 3rd, 5th & 10th - updated the Birmingham Pagan calendar and events for the start of the year.

December 2008: Added the Album pages, with the start of the pictorial review of the year, replacing what would have been travel 2008, but not, because there hasn't been that much travel. I've also created a new front page to the site, that will be static, with just the changes begin here. That means that I've reorganized the site to be in three area: Local Pagan Info, Druidry, including the Tree pages and Stone pages, and albums - my photos. The Wiccan and shamanic stuff can come off the Druid pages, and the old travel pages will be linked off the new album pages. These pages are extra to that scheme. Updated the Brum events and calendar as far as I could: I need some input from the moot leaders for when they are starting again in January.

October 2008: More updates to Brum events and calendar.

September 2008: Updated Brum events and calendar.

August 2008: Added pictures of the Glastonbury OBOD ritual, and the OBOD summer camp (private). Updated Brum events and calendar (several times). Update the About Syrbal page and the Links page (links now up-to-date).

July 2008: Just keeping the events and calendar up-to-date. Also updated two new local pub moots.

June 2008: After 6 months asleep this site has at last woken up again. First I've updated the Local information pages: the pagan events happening around Birmingham, and the calendar. One of the things stopping me doing the updating was the complicated nature of the calendar, so I've simplified it vastly. It now not only shows moot dates, but a summary of all the events I know of in the region for as far in the future as is reasonable.

December 2007: Added all the Travel 2007 pages round England and to Majorca, including some videos. Tidied up the local pagan archives and added the PA Lammas camp photos and videos (see also the Dovedale photos and videos).

November 2007: Updated Brum info pages - put in a new calendar for Nov 07 to Jan 08, and updated the events page. (It was about time I did something here!) I still need to sort out which moots are still running that I have listed and if there are new ones. At the end of the month added two new sites to the Stone pages.

December 2006: Completed and uploaded all my travel pages for 2006. (Go there via the main travel page please).

October 2006: Updated coming events on Brum pages. Put up calendar for October to December 2006. Cleaned up Wicca pages so that they display properly. Added 'blog' of the events in 2006 to archives. Added photos for Beltane ritual, both PA camps in Dovedale (read my thoughts too), Lickey Bluebell walk and talk moot, Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens Apple day walk and talk moot. Added a number of photos to the Stone Pages, especially sites in Wiltshire and OBOD private pictures of camp (available only to OBOD members). Changed the bottom navigation buttons on the top level of each section to work more intuitively.

August 2006: At last got round to updating Brum pages for new events, and new calendar pages. Updated personal information pages.

May 2006: Updated Brum pages for new events, new calendar pages and new moot information. Adding new information on the tree pages.

April 2006: Updated Brum pages for new events, new calendar pages and new moot information. Installed counters everywhere so I can see what you are all interested in. Upgraded to Netobjects Fusion 8. Changed style on my Stones pages and added Glastonbury pictures.

February 2006: Updated Brum pages for new events, new calendar pages and new moot information.

December 2005: Added all the travel 2005 pages. Added Castelrigg stone circle to the Stone Pages. Added PA Yule dinner 2005 pictures page to the archives.

October 2005: Added new information for local events.

August 2005:

• Added the Chris Park Coracle Oracle page.
• No Dragonsong on 12th September, and Abbots Bromley Horn Dance.
• Added PA Lammas Camp pictures to archive pages. General updates of information here and there. Started the new Stone Pages. Pictures of Arbour Low, Dol Tor, Nine Ladies, Stonehenge (including the OBOD 2001 ritual).
• After severe problems with Netobjects Fusion 7, split the site into its directories. This may mean some missing links, and incorrect bookmarks for you. Please only link to higher levels until I can get this all sorted out.

July 2005. Moved the site from Claranet to Tiscali. Redone the whole site in Netobjects Fusion 7, so you will see a lot of different navigation. These are the main changes in the order they appear in the site.:

• Added pictures of Liz and Tim's handfasting, near Stratford.
• Added pictures for the PA picnic and Walk and Talk Moot, Lickey Warren.
• Moots page: The Greet has closed, so the East Birmingham moots have changed. Updated the map, and also the Calendar page.
• Changed the past event pages completely. Now you can click through to the pictures easily. All previous picture pages have been altered in format.
• New picture gallery of Beltane ritual 2005, Moseley Bog to archive pages.
• New picture gallery of PA beltane camp 2004, Dovedale to archive pages.
• A larger version of the video of the Yule ritual from the news, 2000.
• New poetry on the druid poetry page.
• New information about ogham and trees on the trees page.
• New information on the following tree pages: Hawthorn, Oak, and Elder pages and a new Apple page.
• All the travel pages have been reorganized, with better access to the pictures.
• This section reorganized. I've moved the help page off this page onto its own page - please visit it and click to do some good for no price to you.

Note, because of all the reformatting, it's possible that some of your bookmarks and links will no longer work, please update them as soon as you can.

April 2005: Added August to Calendar page and removed March. Improved style and added current date box. Added a couple of events to the events page.

March 2005: Added the new City Tavern moot to the moots page, and updated the map. I need  to update the Calendar. Updated link to West Midland's pages. Removed Thimblemill moot, which no longer meets. Updated other events. Added all the Walk and Talk venues. Later changed the  autumn Walk and Talk moot venues around (Heritage Days are in September, not  August). Added the Hedd Wyn groves' ritual on Saturday. Noted that Dragon Song meeting is not being held on Easter Monday.

February 2005:

• Checked all the offsite links  and removed or updated them, as appropriate.
• Updated the style of the main  West Midlands page for easier links to all appropriate pages.
• Put a map on the moots page  with links, reorganized the page so it's much easier to navigate. Removed  December and January from the Calendar page.  Added information about the new Walk and Talk moot.
• Moved the UK resources page into the West Midlands hierarchy. This effectively orphans the European resources page and the main resources page, which I'm not going to update further.
• Changed the main page and home page links to remove the European resources.
• Changed the About page to reflect the current purpose  of the site.
• Found a way (using javascript) to have the navigation bar in one place,  so that all alterations can be done only once. Also added a navigation bar for those with no javascript - this makes it very much neater and easier to  update. This meant a change to all the pages on the site.
• Corrected some errors on the Travel 2004 pages where some pages were not showing (the Costa  del Sol pictures).
• Moved the links page into the info hierarchy. Hopefully  this won't have any affect on users.
• Updated some links, and added  notes and information and links on the orphaned European resources page. Added lots of new events to the what's coming page.

December 2004, Put the new travel pages up for this year (travel 2004 - see travel pages) Updated the holiday information on the pub moot, calendar and what's  coming pages.

November 2004, Updated the information on the pub moots page and added a calendar of the West Midlands moots for the next 6 months, from December 2004.

April 2004

• continued with corrections to  the HTML, and provided a new top navigation bar. Converting most of the site for use with CSS. Checked and corrected some external links. Generally getting most of the pages to a consistent look and feel.
• continued with corrections to the HTML, completing all the site. Made a new navigation bar at the top  of the page. Added a link at the top to skip the navigation for text readers  only. On travel 2000 page, got the pop-up pictures to work. Updated and completed the Welsh trip pages.
• getting the whole site to a more uniform look and feel. Made new header bars for every section, added a header bar to the index and home pages, and got rid of the background pattern. Changed  the direction arrows at the foot to just three types, one for travel, one for trees and one for the rest (see  bottom of page). I've also added buttons where they were missing, so that each section can be accessed in a flow from the index page on. Corrected a few malformed external links and missing internal ones.
• Found a new and better way to show groups of images. I have applied this to the travel 2000, Nine ladies trip, PA camp and Avebury trip pages.

March 2004, corrected a number of problems with invalid pages on the site (which probably is why it's not in the index any more. I have been through the whole site correcting things. Since the actual content of pages hasn't really altered, many of the changed pages will still show an older "last updated" date.

January 2004,

• Added Travel section for 2003 (North Wales still to be finalized).
• Gone over the whole site completely - changing it many ways:
• Made it more accessible for those with poor or no sight.
• Checked and corrected most of the bad links
• Reorganized the Wicca and Druid  sections to conform with the look and feel of the rest of the site.
• Added new pages in most of the sections.
• Added pictures to all the trees pages. Added pages for all all the tree calendar pages (but no text yet).
• More checking of the links. Updated  the 2000 travel tales, adding my newsletter in PDF form. Removed old files, especially Pagan  Midlands Times issue 2 files - just left the PDF file.
• discovered there are some problems with my Site manager, so there may be some broken links until I can do a thorough  check on-line.
• In the Pagan "Happenings" archive, put an index to the main picture sources.

Previous Major Modifications to the site

February 2003: Updated most of the pages to have the navigation tabs at the top of the page instead of at the left, so that most of the site can be more easily navigated by a text readers. Improved the navigation on this page.

27th December 2002: Yule ceremony made the papers - see the events archive! Started listing new moots - see moots pages. Updated this pages' links to the good-works pages.

June 2002: Started listing new events in Birmingham latest and what's coming

Feb 2002: New things happening - in what's coming in Brum. New page of pictures from the PA Maypole charity event April 2001.

October 2001: New page of pictures from the BDO autumn equinox ceremony at Avebury 2001. This also has the great effect of showing the pictures in a frame on the page.

September 2001: Total reorganization of the site. If you get any 404: page not found, please bear with me - I'm trying hard to get everything right. If you still find a problem now, please report it to me at: Webmaster@alldruid.co.uk.. Improved the loading of the front page. Improved the way that the 9 ladies pictures are shown: in a pane on the page