American Kitefliers Association

GREAT BRITAIN, we're not there yet, but if we all work together, we can make GREAT again

I agree with Keith's sentiment but geographically "Great Britain" only includes the mainland and none of the associated islands or Northern Ireland so I would go for United Kingdom or UK. Also I am sure the Scottish and Welsh members would not want to be addressed as England.

I find it interesting that in the alphabetic listing of countries "Great Britain" come under "U". Presumably this has been changed from United Kingdom and the list does not re-sort.

If we can't have individual country names - England, Scotland etc - then maybe UK. A lot of online forms for international usage - airlines, couriers use UK, and its easy to navigate to - its always close to the bottom of the list!

Here is the Wiki article on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminolog … tish_Isles

Basically, Great Britain is the island containing England, Scotland, Wales, etc.
United Kingdom is the isle of Great Britain plus Northern Ireland and a bunch of smaller islands around there.

It should probably be decided as a matter of policy whether members use the individual country names (England, Scotland, etc.) or UK as their country. At that point the system could have, instead of a blank box, a drop down menu choice of which country they want as their 'home country'. When you are creating a database, you want the data to be entered in a consistent way, and the drop-down menu of country choices is one way to ensure this.

I'd go with United Kingdom - then, surely, it cannot offend anyone living in this relatively small space! It's what is asked for most when filling in computer forms nowadays, too, I've noticed....no more GREAT Britain.....not sure about United, either, really.....but I personally think UK is OK....at least there are more of us than 2 - members, that is!

Greetings -

I will stick my nose in here with an additional question relating to this topic.

How important is it to have the name or abbreviation of the name of the county in the mailing address of folks who live in the U.K.?

Mel at AKA

P.S.  Our next convention in Wildwood, New Jersey, is just 334 days away.  That means you have plenty of time to plan on attending. :-)

melhickman wrote:

How important is it to have the name or abbreviation of the name of the county in the mailing address of folks who live in the U.K.?

About as important as having the state in USA mailing addresses. You can probably get away with not having it if you have the correct postal code written clearly, but I'm sure it is preferable to include it. I've had US mail arrive with just a street address plus the Zip+4 code. No state; no city. Not advisable.

As an ex-POM myself, the FIRST place I went to on the list was "U" for United Kingdom... and was puzzled why GB appeared under "U"?

Then I remembered that software writers are most likely to be younger than I am (so the world has changed a lot since I went to school...) and probably not from any one of the municipalities within the UK. 

If there aren't enough lines in the computer-form address to include individual entities (Scotland, Wales etc.) then AKA can at least have every  financial member in UK show up in the database in the same place.  I'd hate to "lose" anyone now!
Linda - still exploring!

PS - thanks for you all for participating.  Now then, cuppa... your place, or mine?