I have used my magical moderator powers to move this thread to Avalon-General Discussion.
I usually navigate the forum by clicking on the "today's posts" button.
If I want to get on overwhelm, I click "home" or the top level to see all the forums and sub forums. That's where you have to go to make a new thread.
I go to the bottom left corner and switch from "Avalon Electric" to cool "Minty" skin for less stress on the ole' eyes. In Minty that button switches to the other side to go back to Electric. In minty the today's post button is under quick links.
When searching I always used "Advanced search" as I think the first level search is defective. Last I knew even advanced was defective and the admin guys are aware of this but very, very busy with personal lives right now.
So then you can use
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
and put
http://www.projectavalon.net/forum in the bottom space, "Search within a site or domain:"
The FAQ button gives some easy to follow directions on using the forum. I learned a lot there. All these things moving in the avatars and smilies drive me nuts, so I found ways to turn those off. I'll share how if anyone wants to know.
Have fun!
Karen