VAT Reduction

Following the government's decision to reduce the rate of VAT from 17.5% to 15%, our clients will be happy to know that the cost of any tunings and other works will come at a slightly reduced cost. These changes come into effect on Monday December 1st and will last until early 2010. It is worth noting that there are some VAT exemptions when it comes to organ building work, and details of this can be found on our site, in the FAQ section. In other news Saint Catherine's Church, Gorseinon have confirmed they wish us to carry out a rebuild on their Nicholson organ at some point in 2009. We have also recently re-leathered two reservoirs for Neath Capel Soar Maesyrhaf and these have been reinstalled in the past week. We have recently gained several new tuning contracts in South Wales, Leeds, County Durham, North Wales and Lancashire, and are looking forward to a busy lead-up to Christmas, and an even busier 2009.

New Site Launch

Today sees the launch of the improved GO-Organ Builders Ltd. website. You'll find more information than was previously available, as well as improved navigation and layout. The galleries have been completely redesigned to give you more information on each organ in our care, and this will be updated over the coming weeks to include specifications and images of all organs, where available.Also coming in the next few weeks is a Welsh language version of the website, which is currently being developed. As always the site will be maintained daily, and the news section kept up to date, so you can keep up with what the team at GO-Organ Builders Ltd. are doing.We hope you enjoy exploring the new site and appreciate your feedback and contributions, which should be sent to N.Cassidy@go-organs.org.uk.

South Wales Hears The Difference

Last week the GO-Organ Builders team were once again down in South Wales, tuning in Port Talbot and Brecon, and assessing two jobs for rebuild- one being a 1935 Willis. We will be returning to the Swansea area for a further 5 assessments, installation of a new blower and two tunings.

Last week also saw us reinstalling the overhauled pantographic regulator at Downing College, Cambridge and tuning at Barton in Cumbria ahead of the wedding season.

This week, as well as returning to South Wales, we will be carrying out further work in Saint Alban's, Blackburn as well as some work within the Liverpool Diocese.

Site Update

• Organ Specifications- A few new stoplists added today- Bickershaw, Downing College, Beetham, Pooley Bridge and Chorlton-Cum Hardy. Images added to all stop-lists including Giggleswick, Stoke-Minster and Ambleside.
• Recital Diary- Updated recital diary to remove yesterdays lunchtime recital at Wrexham, Saint Giles.

Site Update

• Pipes in Stock- This page has been updated to include details of a selection of pipes in stock.
• Redundant Organs- Created page and entered details of a two manual Nicholson Organ.
• Organs in Our Care- Captioned photographs in this section.
• Ambleside Specification- Added organ specification for Saint Mary The Virgin, Ambleside.
• Meta Tag Updates- Updated all Meta titles, keywords, descriptions and language tags for more appropriate search traffic.
• noscript Element Added- noscript element added to homepage to allow visitors with javascript disabled to view image on homepage.
• Sitemap Updated- The sitemap has been updated to show newer pages.

Future updates will remain focused on navigation, as well as expanding on current content (such as organ specifications) and exploring new features.

Site Update

A lot of updates to the site this week, and we're still working on them:

• The New Links Directory- The old links page has been replaced by a directory structure. Pages are grouped by category and these pages will be updated following new sites/pages being found or suggested.
• Removal of SnapShots- Although SnapShots is a good tool, offering a preview of a page without leaving the GO-Organs site, it was causing problems in some browsers. So we've removed SnapShots from the site.
• Changing Image on Homepage- The image of Giggleswick School Chapel's organ case is still there, but now it's part of a selection of images, so each time you visit the homepage a new image will present itself.
• Resized Gallery Images- Previously when you clicked on an image in any of the galleries you would be taken to a full size original. This slowed down loading times and was unnecessary. Maximum dimensions have been set for all images.
• Pop-Up Gallery Images- In an effort to improve navigation, when images are clicked they will appear in pop-up windows.
• Bluecoats Gallery Captions- Over time, all of the gallery images will have captions beneath them, as opposed to the current 'alt' descriptions which appear when you hover your cursor over images. The photographs of the Bluecoats rebuild where captioned this week.
• The Online Store- The organ store has been future-proofed, to allow for ease of use when we start selling more items. The 'Buy Now' button has been replaced with 'Add to Cart' and a 'View Cart' button has been added to the top of the page.
• Additions to 'About' Section- We've added an Environmental Policy and our Mission Statement.
• Changes to Galleries- Added images of Brecon Cathedral and Park Place, and repaired/replaced all broken links and missing images.
• Updated Recital Diary- Removed past recitals, and added details for two concerts a Brecon Cathedral.

Priority is now being placed on making navigation more user-friendly, as well as increasing conformity to standards throughout the galleries.

Site Updates

As previously mentioned- the website is constantly being updated, and the changes aren't always immediately apparent. So our blog, which can be found at organ-builder.blogspot.com, will now contain updates made to the site. These will usually be in note form, but will let you know what changes have been made. So if a gallery is updated, or a broken link is fixed you'll know to check it out.
For visitors using Internet Explorer 8, you'll be pleased to know that the GO-Organ Builders news page is now a WebSlice, meaning you can be notified of updates in your browser's links bar.
This week will see us visiting Beetham for a day in order to carry out repairs to wooden pipes and removal of the pedal chest for glue flooding and re-palleting. We will also be spending a day carrying out intensive maintenance on the organ of Blackburn, Saint Alban's, following the removal of plastic sheeting