Member Commitments on the Bulletin

You have a large event coming up and you want to remind members of their volunteer commitments as many ways as you can. Did you know that you can display member commitments on your newsletter on a per bulletin basis?

What does that mean? 

When you create or copy a bulletin, you will see an option to activate the 'Show Commitments' feature on the Properties page. If checked, each bulletin displays the member commitments whether that be:

• tasks assigned in the duty roster
• upcoming events they have registered for
• volunteer shifts they've signed up for
• tasks assigned within the new member program
• and more

If not selected, then the entire section is removed. 

How does this help me?

This is a great way to remind members of their upcoming commitments without having to keep track of their activities manually. The system does it all for you! 

Members only see their own commitments in the section along with details regarding what type of activity it is (example: volunteer shift, new member program, etc.)

Introducing the all-new Bulletin Wizard

It's here! You asked for a more intuitive, fun and easy way to create your bulletins and that is just what we delivered. Introducing the all-new Bulletin Wizard - simplicity reinvented. 

Over the past year, we've been collecting feedback on what you wanted to see in the Bulletin Designer. Through online webinars, President Elect Training Seminars, conventions and conversations via email and phone, your suggestions filled our wishlist with functionality that would make up an ideal bulletin module.

Welcome to the Bulletin Wizard! 

Currently in beta, this new designer will let you create professional, modern and mobile-friendly bulletins that stand out.

• See your newsletter come to life with the live email editor and never worry about jumping from the editor window to preview mode, again.
• Select from one of the many pre-designed customizable templates, add your message and you're set, which means you don't ever need to start from scratch.
• Prefer creating your own design? We've created blank templates with a number of supporting page layouts so you can add your content, tweak the colors and send away.

Whether you're looking to match the Rotary Brand guidelines or your own unique style, engage your readers with newsletters that capture attention and make an impact. Thoroughly tested on all email clients, browsers and devices, we guarantee that all our designs will look great on all platforms.

How do I access it? 

Now installed on your club and district website, you will see a new tab titled "New Bulletin (Beta) appear on top of your Admin page, next to the current Bulletin tab. You still have access to the current designer and can use both modules. Eventually, the current designer will be replaced by the new Bulletin Wizard.

Help resources 

To help get you started, we've created an interactive Bulletin Manual introducing you to the new designer, which you can access by visiting: http://docs.clubrunnersupport.com/bulletin.

Join us for our introductory webinar

Join us as we introduce you to the new Bulletin Wizard. We'll go over everything that is new and how to get started.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016: 11:00am EDT (Toronto Time)

If you cannot make it on that date, not to worry! This webinar will be recorded and made available online soon after. 

As you create your own bulletin designs, please share them with us. We look forward to your feedback.

Visit the ClubRunner Booth in Korea

ClubRunner will be at the Rotary International Convention in Korea in May and are hoping to see you there.

We have some exciting plans for this 5 day event where we're going to be celebrating the launch of many of our new features to help boost your PR.

Won't you come visit us?


Located at Booth #2926 and 2928, come by and meet the faces of ClubRunner, share your experiences with us and members of the ClubRunner community and best of all celebrate the launch of our all-new Bulletin Designer!

Celebrate your Rotary story

Visit us our booth to see how we can help spread your message to your audience with our new PR features.

1. The all-new Bulletin Designer - Simplicity Reinvented

Be the first to get a sneak peek of our easiest designer yet. We're going to be celebrating the official launch of this feature with you at the convention.

• See your newsletter come to life with the live email editor and never worry about jumping from the editor window to preview mode again
• Select from one the many pre-designed customizable templates, add your message and you're set. Prefer creating your own design? Select from one of the many blank templates, add your own flare and send away.

2. Next-Gen Website Themes

• Looking to give your website a face lift? Check out our new line of modern website themes.
• Not only are they mobile responsive, these themes also include new wider page styles with menu navigation above the fold, rotating image carousels, and even homepage options without a banner.

3. Contacts

• Integrated with your own bulletin and email, expand your network and engage with your community using the Contacts module.
• Get organized by creating custom groups and segregate your lists by friends, prospective members, sponsors and more.

What else is happening at booth #2926 and 2928?

It's going to be an action-packed week. Come by and join Jeffrey, Mickey, Maxim and Divya for:

•  website and bulletin enhancement workshops
• tips and tricks for best practices
• draws for some very exciting prizes 
• and so much more

We can't wait to see you there!

Tip of the Week: Manage blocked and bounced emails

Picture this scenario: you send an email and at your next meeting, you find that a handful of members never received your email. Our support team does some investigation and find that the message simply bounced or was blocked, perhaps due the fact that the recipient might have marked a previous email as spam. Sounds familiar?

Managing bounced and blocked emails

We've now added functionality to give you more control over your suppression lists. When members stop receiving emails, it is because for some reason, they were automatically placed in a suppression list. There are many reasons why this might occur, however, the most common are when someone marks your email as junk mail or if their mailbox was full.

A suppression list essentially is a block list which means anyone on the list will not receive future messages. You can now remove these email addresses from this list! To do so, simply navigate to the Email Traffic Report page and then click on the Details link under the Actions column. Next, click on the number under the Emails Sent column to view your email statistics. On the top right of this page, you will find the "Manage Bounced and Block Emails" button. You will then see a list of email addresses that did not receive your message along with the reason why, and will be able to remove them from this list.

It's that simple! So the next time you find that a member did not receive an email, it's easy to find out why and take action.

Tip of the week!

We've featured many articles on making bulletin preparation and sending easy and the focus today is on Plain Text bulletins. What is a plain text bulletin? Simply said, it's your newsletter without the images or text styling - it's text only.

Some of your members use email clients that do not render HTML messages. When this happens, their email client automatically displays the plain text version of the newsletter, if one was made available. If there is no plain text version to go along with your newsletter, you run the risk of having readers see garbled HTML code rather than content.
  

Visually impaired members may also have trouble with a graphically intense bulletin, as it may present a challenge for the text reading software they may use to help them navigate the web.  As such, they require a plain text bulletin, one that contains no images or text formatting.

Another reason to create this alternative text version is that email filters are more likely to identify a image heavy bulletin (one with many images and links) as spam.

 

To create the plain text version of your bulletin simply click on the Text Version button at the top right of the bulletin editor. This will take you to the Bulletin Text Version editing page, from where you can copy in your text into the editor.

Suggestions to create a nice looking, readable plain text email

While you cannot add colors or change the font size of your text in the plain version, you can still modify the appearance of your text. For instances where you want to identify headlines from the main text, you can use symbols to separate the two:

Volunteers Needed  for our Annual Fundraiser

--------------------------------------------

  

You can also use these line breaks between paragraphs and articles to break your text up or use lot's of white space to break them apart, so it's easy to scan for important bits and pieces. White space is important as it breaks the plain text version of your email nicely.

If the HTML version of your bulletin contained bullet points, consider using hyphens or asterisks to list your points in the plain text email. 

* Volunteers Needed  for our Annual Fundraiser

OR 

- Volunteers Needed  for our Annual Fundraiser

If you'd bolded a few words in your HTML version, you can add an asterisk before and after the word(s) in your plain text email to place the emphasis.

 Volunteers **Needed**  for our Annual Fundraiser

For every link that is included in your bulletin, make sure you copy and paste the links to the plain text version of your bulletin as well. If the URL you want to share is really long, use URL shortening services such as bit.ly or Google's URL builder. Always make sure you label what the link is meant for, so the reader can easily identify the call to action. 

View Available Shifts [www.clubrunner.ca] 

Read More [www.clubrunner.ca]

For help resources or to view more best practices on bulletins, check out our knowledgebase.