CONTENT FOR THE WEBSITE As part of our efforts to keep the PDMHS website fresh and up-to-date, we are always looking to include relevant content from our members. Obviously we have to exercise “editorial control” so your submissions are not automatically added and where they are there is a strong possibility that we will edit them.
Photos
Pictures that include people work best, adding scale and a human dimension. Suitable subjects include PDMHS projects, heritage walks, underground trips or general views of lead mining scenery.
Any photos we choose to add will be credited. Please provide caption information (date, locations, people, description as appropriate). The preferred format is JPEG, if you know how to resize them, they only need to measure 1000 pixels on the longest side. If you don’t know how to resize them, just send them as they are and we can do it for you. 
To give you an idea of the sort of thing we’re after, here’s a photo taken on one of our recent heritage walks in Lathkill Dale. We are happy to select from a small gallery of your photos but please don’t swamp us with dozens.
Please send your photos to meets@pdmhs.com
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Writing for the web is a very different undertaking than for other media. Articles need to be short and to the point or they just don’t get read but it’s not just that. Billions of other web pages are just one click away, one poor experience is enough to make a visitor to our site move on somewhere else on the web.
A secondary but still vital consideration for the webmaster is the impact on how Google indexes the PDMHS web site, we risk being heavily penalised for getting it wrong. It is important that we appear in the first few pages of results for relevant searches and that is very difficult to achieve.
There is also an issue in respect of consistency of style. Big commercial websites publish detailed and extensive “style guides” for their content providers. Smaller sites like this rely instead on editors who aim to achieve much the same, removing the need for individual content providers to worry about conforming to the standards of the site.
There is a very high likelihood that the webmaster will make significant changes to your submission, if you prefer that should not happen then we will be unable to accept your article. Articles for consideration should be sent to webmaster@pdmhs.com.
Contact the meets coordinator at meets@pdmhs.com
For reasons of safety and insurance these are members only events. Trips vary in difficulty and the equipment required. Members with caving or climbing experience (as well as knowledge of the mines to be visited) are needed to lead visits.
There are numerous tasks – many of which demand no special skills – and any help you are able to offer is gratefully accepted. Opportunities include cutting grass, weeds and brush, sourcing, storing and preparing firewood, cleaning and painting, raking out and re-pointing mortared walls and rebuilding dry-stone walls.
The Museum is in the Grand Pavilion, Matlock Bath. Routine work is required to maintain, repair and improve displays.
A team has been working on the Long Rake Mine winder engine now housed at Temple Mine. The artefact now has shelter from the elements and is in the process of being restored (although it will never be used to lift mine-cages again!)