A key aspect of the new Group will be maintaining an Internet presence to act as the focal point of the Group. A new website is under construction and is planned to launch by the end of the Summer. As part of and in preparation for the changes, you will also see a move to the 'badham.org' domain - B1NS has owned this domain name for many years but up until now we have used the badham.org.uk for website hosting, however we feel the badham.org name reflects a more 'international' basis which we want to promote to reflect the fact that we have Badhams all over the Globe! The only affect on existing members will be a possible need to change your browser 'bookmarks' (or equivalent), however automatic 'redirects' will probably take care of this.

Importantly, the main change will be a move to a single tier of membership - this will be FREE and is simply obtained by registering with the website (using the same or very similar registration process as used until now). All existing users (B1NS members and registered 'Community' members) will be automatically transferred to the new Group as Group Members*, with existing User Names, passwords etc. More excitingly, online access to all facilities will be available to all members - this includes all retained articles** and full access to the ex Society databases, with many thousands of records relating to parish records, censuses, registration indexes, etc.

With most of the One Name research now undertaken, we're excited about the recent research activity that has been targeted towards 'gap filling' known Badham 'hotspots' (e.g. Herfordshire's Frome Valley) to produce a more reliable and useful set of records. This will much better support Family History research which will become the primary focus of the new Group. This Herefordshire work is now close to completion, and you'll have seen updates posted in this regard. But this is the type of activity we'd very much like to focus on, and we'd like to encourage members to support us in this regard.

The new site will also adopt some new 'branding', with a cleaner 'look and feel' and easier navigation (including further improvements to access from mobile devices). The current facilities including the Forum, Private Messaging and Comments, will be there to encourage interaction between members, but changes are also hoped to be made in these areas to ensure their improved ease of use.

Rest assured, the same enthusiastic bunch of individuals will be taking all this forward! However we're also hoping that a succession plan can be devised with people becoming encouraged to help who are as excited about the future of the new Group as we are .