BFC Forum

The BFC Forum is for members to discuss co-op operations and upcoming orders, especially items in the Unfilled Cases Report. It can also be used to discuss other matters related to the co-op, such as nutrition, food politics, health concerns, environmental issues, and even favorite recipes. You can view most discussions, but in order to initiate or participate in any discussion, you have to register. In registering, you set up your own username and password, and that's what you subsequently use whenever you login. Once you're in a discussion, please keep it courteous and focused!

Note: For the time being -- and maybe permanently -- the BFC Forum is out of commission. The Forum is based on a software product called InvisionBoard. Back in 2003, when the Forum was created, our web hosting service Total Choice Hosting (TCH) was able to provide this software because it was free. TCH "supported" the software in the sense that they installed newer versions of the software as they became available. Now the software is no longer free, and TCH no longer supports it. We could have continued using the last free version of InvisionBoard, but recent upgrades to the server environment have essentially "broken" this older version. TCH now provides and supports a different (free) forum software. We could convert the BFC Forum to that software, but the conversion involves a substantial amount of work that may not be worth the effort. If the Forum had been used by BFC Members on a regular basis, the effort would be worthwhile. But the Forum was rarely used -- evidently because people are more familiar with email, even though email is not really designed for "community discussions". If enough BFC Members express serious interest in using the Forum, however, we will look into reviving it by converting to the new software. If you want to revive the BFC Forum, send an email about it to the Webmeister at bfc@brightonfoodcoop.com.

"Knock" on Door to Enter BFC Forum

Basic Instructions for Using the BFC Forum

You may want to print these instructions or open a new browser window so that you can refer to the instructions after you enter the BFC Forum.

The BFC Forum is an "electronic bulletin board" where messages and replies can be posted to form discussion chains. The software used for this purpose is called InvisionBoard. The Forum actually consists of multiple forums, and each forum can have multiple topics (discussion chains).

When you first enter the Forum, you are on the Welcome Screen. Near the top center of the screen are two links: "Log in" and "Register".

If you have not yet registered, click on the "Register" link.

If you have previously registered, click on the "Log in" link. Invision then takes you to the Login Screen:

Note that the Welcome Screen displays all the topical Forums in the BFC Forum. At present there are six forums organized into the categories "Co-op Business" and "General Topics:

To see what discussions are in progress, click on the forum that interests you. Invision then displays a list of topics under discussion in that forum.


For each topic you will see

  • Topic Title (name of the topic under discussion)
  • Topic Starter (who posted the initial message in the discussion)
  • Replies (number of messages in the discussion chain)
  • Views (number of times the topic has been visited)
  • Last Action (when the most recent message was posted to the topic and by whom)

If you want Invision to notify you by e-mail about new messages posted to the forum, click on the "Subscribe to this forum" link.  Invision will then notify you by e-mail when a new message is posted to this forum. Notification occurs only once per day, though, to keep you from being bombarded with e-mail when a topic happens to heats up within the forum.

To participate in an existing discussion, or just to look at the chain of messages in the discussion, click on the Topic.

Once you are in the discussion:

  • If you want to post a message within Topic, click on the "Add Reply" button.
  • If you want to edit a message you previously posted, click on the "Edit" button.
  • If you want to respond to a specific message in the chain, click on the "Quote" button associated with that message.

Invision then opens a window where you can enter/edit your message. But if you clicked on "Quote", Invision also displays the message to which you are responding, and you can edit out parts of that message not relevant to your reply. After you enter/edit your own message/reply, specify any settings you want to apply, then click on the "Submit" button.

To start a new discussion, click on the "New Topic" button. Invision opens a window where you can enter your message initiating the new topic.

  • Specify any settings you want to apply to your message (for example, en emotican or "mood" icon, aka a "smilie").
  • You can also set up a poll to gauge the strength of opinion on various sides of an issue.
  • When you're ready, scroll down and click on the "Submit" button.
  • If you want to see what your message will look like when posted, click on the "Preview Post" button. Invision then displays your message as it will appear when posted and also displays the text in a separate edit box where you can make further changes before actually posting the message.

If you want Invision to notify you by e-mail about new messages posted to this particular topic, click on the "Track this topic" link.  Invision will then notify you by e-mail when a new message is posted to this topic. Notification occurs only once per day, though, to keep you from being bombarded with e-mail if the topic happens to heat up.

If you want to change your settings, profile, or password, or want to check your subscriptions, click on the link "My Controls" near the top of the screen.

Forgotten Password

Recovering your password in InvisionBoard is actually a matter of reactivating your "account" and then resetting the password. You start the process by clicking on the "Click here!" link on the Login Screen.
  • Invision then displays a screen where you enter your Username and a 6-digit code that is displayed on the screen in such a way that only a person can read it. (This prevents any web-cruising program from breaking into the recovery process.)
  • Invision then sends a message to your registered E-Mail Address. The message contains a User Id, a Validation Key, and a new Password.
  • At the same time, Invision takes you to an "Account Activation" screen. To reactivate your account, enter the User Id and Validation key from the e-mail message.
  • Now log in using the new Password from the e-mail message.
  • Once you're back in the BFC Forum, click on the "My Controls" link and look for the "Change Password" link in the Options section. There you can reset the password Invision has given you to something you can more easily remember.

This is the basic information you need to start using Invision. Once you're comfortable with using the basic functions, go to the Help Forum to get additional information and instructions. You can also click on the Help link near the top right of any Invision screen to learn about some of the more exotic functions and features.