Ron Graham’s Report
—For Apr-May-Jun 2010
This page holds the reports on my voluntary ministry activities —for the information of those who take a special interest in my work.
Dear Brethren... This report covers the second quarter of 2010.
During this quarter, the dreaded winter came. Mind you, our nightly low is better than Hobart or Canberra's top for the day. But cold is a relative thing. It's not the mild cold that makes you glum, so much as the short days, but even then we get eleven hours of daylight during the shortest days. Some parts of the world get half that, or even none! Anyway the shortest day went by, and I'm looking forward to longer warmer days ahead (God willing).
Lessons at Bundaberg
- I taught and preached on 32 occasions at Bundaberg during April, May, and June 2010.
- That comprised 13 Sunday sermons, 9 Sunday Adult classes, 10 midweek lessons.
- Two main themes took up most of these 32 lessons. In April I presented 10 lessons on Biblical authority and interpretation. In June we began a series of new studies in Colossians entitled "Christ is All". I presented 9 of these lessons, taking us to about half way through that series. I produced four tracts providing these lessons in written form.
- The other 13 lessons were on various subjects
Work on the Internet
Work on www.simplybible.com saw 13 new Bible studies added. (There are now 972 Bible studies on the website. Other study pages such as preacher training and Bible quizzes brings the total study pages to 1033. Then add all the information and index pages and the total is 1160. So the site has grown over 8 years into a very large resource covering a wide variety of subjects in depth. Keep in mind that all the material is written in a concise manner. So it is quite a rich resource.)
I added a "simple" button that shows a page without banner, footer, or sidebar. This helps with accessibility for sight impaired users. It also gives another print version option for those who find their browsers don't render the other print version. This additional facility inserted nicely into the earlier work to provide printable versions of pages.
Another major task was making pages responsive to the width of the window in which they are viewed. There are millions of new small portable internet devices being used. Their small screens cannot display the site properly. So I wrote several javascript functions and cascading style sheets to allow pages to automatically adjust to narrow windows. (Some pages will need some individual tweaks from me). As a bonus, big-screen users can now narrow the window and hit the "fix page" button. The site will then display properly and not need to occupy the entire screen.
In addition to these major tasks, I completed several minor jobs to improve the appearance, functioning, and accuracy of various pages. I also connected the site to facebook.
I have plugged in to a new web statistics provider. The one that I have used for years has become extremely unreliable. The statistics I now get seem quite reliable and regular. They show (among other things) the number of actual visitors (600-1000 daily) to the site. These statistics are almost immediate (not yesterdays) and allow me to watch in real time as people access the site. Of course I cannot do that continually, but spending ten minutes occasionally, looking at the detail, informs me as to how people use the site. Around 100 visitors (daily) seem to spend an hour or more looking at many pages. I even found one person (from Argentina) who had used the site for a stretch of five hours!
Till next time God willing —again to those who take a personal interest in my work and pray for me, a big thank you and may God bless you. Your servant and Christ's,
Ron Graham