Club Highlight: Rotary Club of Poipu Beach

A good website is the result of a combination of things - from the page layout to the imagery, ease of use, and even fonts and colors. In an effort to bring you the very best, we recently released new Next-Gen website themes that give you a fresher and more modern canvas to work on. A number of clubs have already adopted these new themes and this month, we're featuring one such club: The Rotary Club of Poipu Beach, Hawaii.

Your website is a representation of your club and through it, you are able to illustrate what your club is about. Through the text, you share what you want the reader to learn; through images, you take the visitor on a visual journey, and through the color palette and overall design, you share the essence and attitude and nature that makes up your club. Colors elicit feelings and have a huge impact on your website visitors. A recent study found that 62-90% of the interaction the visitor has when on a website is determined by the colors and that is formed within the first 90 seconds itself.


Think Hawaii and you immediately begin to think of beaches and sun. The Rotary Club of Poipu Beach captures the essence of the island with the use of simple warm tones - yellow and blue. The colors themselves depict sand, water, sun - all things you relate Hawaii too. In turn the use of such colors elicit a sense of trust which entices the website visitor to read further.


The website also is a great example of one which has a good balance of being member focused and visitor focused. This club opted for a unique layout where the two column layout starts below the fold, which means, that the message they want to get across immediately does not get lost above the fold. The first block of text you see is a welcome message which encapsulates what the club is all about in a nutshell, and invites Rotarians to join them for a make-up session. The text is enticing enough for anyone that wishes to learn more to click on the links and find the information they're looking for. By opting for a wide band at the top, and having the two column layout start later, they ensure that visitors don't miss their mission statement, which is front and center.

As you begin to scroll further, one of things we really liked was the use of big buttons to draw attention to call to actions. The idea behind adding buttons is to get the reader to act on something you want them to do, in this case, it's either to purchase tickets for an upcoming event or learn more. This ensures that your "want" (purchase or learn more) is not lost in a sea of text. People tend to scan and these days, we often visit websites on our phones or tablets, which means, the brighter and more unique your call to action is, the higher the chances that the reader will see it and act on it.

Pictures can speak volumes and depict a message far more effectively than text. Another great element on this site is the use of the built-in photo carousel that was also released with the new ClubRunner themes. The Rotary Club of Poipu Beach is a very active club and it shows. They balance their stories detailing their activities with the use of pictures and slideshows. Real photos add a human touch and allow the visitor to relate to the club and grab their attention.

One of the most common website design mistakes is making pages difficult to reach. As an active Rotary club, we can tell that the Rotary Club of Poipu Beach has a lot of information to share with members and with the public. Clicking is expensive and having visitors click through a number of links is comparable to creating a digital obstacle course. If a visitor or even a member has to click through dozens of links, chances are that many will stop midway. Here, we see that the club combats this through their navigation menu. Important information is one click away, such as how to receive grants, what the club does, its history, and much more. Similarly, even for members, they've added a dropdown menu just for the secure internal pages which require members to log in. By exposing these built-in pages on the public website, they ensure that members have a captivating reason to login to the member area, while making these important resources just one click away.

Click the image below to visit the Rotary Club of Poipu Beach's website, and perhaps gain some inspiration for your own!

Tips for the week!

Did you know that you can easily change the membership type of an honorary member to a variety of options including staff, corporate, exchange student, etc.?

You asked for it and we listened! We've now made it easier to move honorary members to your Other Users list. When looking through your Active Members list, you will see a new action type called "Change Type" next to all honorary members. This allows you to move honorary members to your Other Users list where you can mark them as a staff member, an exchange student, corporate member or as any one of the options presented to you on that list.

Need to promote an upcoming event? Did you know that ClubRunner automatically generates a friendly name for your events?

Whereas previously, when sharing an event, the URL that was generated displayed the Event ID, we've modified this to always display a friendlier address. This means that your event URL will always display as www.mysiteaddress.com/event/NameOfEvent, making it much easier to publish it on flyers, etc.

Did you know that you can now directly link to a specific speaker entry rather than the entire speakers list?

Whereas previously, you could only link to the Speakers list page as an option with the "Built-in" pages to link to, you can now link to a specific speaker entry! Simply use the link button on the editor and then click on the "Speaker" option. You'll then be able to choose which speaker entry you to want to link to.

We add features to the system every two weeks as part of our software upgrade release. Missed our notes from the last service update? Check them out here!

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.

Introducing Newer, Fresher, Modern Website Themes

Give your website a new look with ClubRunner's new responsive themes.

Times have changed, and so must we! You asked for fresher, newer and more modern website themes, and that is just what we are going to deliver. This January, take your website to the next level with our modern line of website templates.

Designed from the ground up on a new framework that is fully responsive and scales beautifully on all screen sizes (yes, we mean true mobile compatibility!), these new themes include new wider page styles with menu navigation items above the fold, image carousel, and even homepage options without banners.

Best of all, you can choose your theme and edit your content using the same familiar interface you are used to, the ClubRunner theme library and Website Designer. Simply select the theme, layout option and color variant and let your website shine!

Get a sneak peek

Get a sneak peek of a few select themes by heading over to your themes library! We've added two new Next-Gen themes called Millennium and Mid-Century, complete with a number of color variations and different page layouts for you to choose from! Check out our Next-Gen Themes Help Guide to get started.

2015 - Year in Review

2015 has been a whirlwind year for us at ClubRunner with lots of changes and growth. It is only with your support and encouragement that we are where we are today and why we were able to hit so many milestones.

Connecting with Clubs

We love when we get the chance to connect with our customers and share in their success stories. 2015 began with our first stop at the 2015 Rotary International Assembly in San Diego, where we met with our District champions and had the opportunity to meet some great new leaders and establish new relationships. We're proud to say that as of December 2015, we serve 122 Districts and more than 5,000 clubs worldwide. From mid-February until March end, we continued our journey by attending 17 President-Elect Training seminars. Seeing champions reunite at our booths and sharing best practices, we brought home some great memories. At home, we had the opportunity to welcome several visiting Rotarians to our own office for training, best practice and even focus group sessions.

 

We look forward to meeting everyone once again next year with even more features to unveil!

More Solutions, New Versions

In July, we released new levels of ClubRunner to meet the unique needs of each individual club with the release of ClubRunner Lite to clubs of all sizes and ClubRunner Admin Only in addition to the Standard Version.

 

ClubRunner Lite is a great option for clubs that need just the necessities for public relations like a website or newsletter, while the Admin Version is for clubs that still want to take advantage of all the administration and member management features but maintain their website outside of ClubRunner. 

 

Now, no matter what your needs or budget, we have a solution just for you!

Customer Wish List

Every year, we receive hundreds upon hundreds of suggestions from customers about features they would like to see in ClubRunner. Our goal is to incorporate as many suggestions as we can. This year, our development team worked very hard to meet these requests and implemented 596 new features into the ClubRunner system, both big and small. From new website and bulletin themes and color variations to page and widget customization properties; from improving the Photo Albums module to making enhancements to the Events module - we made a lot of remarkable changes to ClubRunner. View our Service Updates from this past year by clicking here.

Taking Attendance

You asked for it, and we delivered! We redesigned the Attendance module based on all the feedback we've received over the years. Giving you the ability to bank and track make-ups, record guests and visitors, open up past meetings to recalculate attendance, customize attendance rules based on member type, and more, this module caters to the unique attendance needs of each club. Learn more by clicking here.

Seeking Volunteers

This year, we re-launched the number one feature all volunteer groups need - the all-new Volunteers module! Redesigned and revamped, the Volunteers module was created to cater to virtually any scenario where you need to co-ordinate people in various commitments, organized by time, day, task or group. Great for event shifts, volunteers, committee signups or anything involving a schedule, you can now build your own signup sheets and automate the communication process behind it, so you can focus on more pressing matters. For more information on getting started with this module, click here.

Support in a Nutshell

The support team had a busy but great year answering more than 23,390 support emails alone. As part of our mission to provide you with the best support and access to support resources, we  added new on-demand videos in addition to  recorded webinars to help you familiarize yourself with the all features available to you. New guides and help articles were added throughout the year to the library so you can find answers to any questions you may have. Visit www.ClubRunnerSupport.com to view our updated knowledgebase, access new on-demand videos, help resources and more.

 

Here is to a great 2015! In the new year, we have even more resolve and commitment to continue improving ClubRunner for you.

 

THANK YOU!

Happy Holidays from the ClubRunner Team!

Happy Holidays!

...from the ClubRunner family to yours.
 

 (Click to play, make sure to have your speakers up!)

As the year comes to an end, our thoughts turn graciously to those who made our success possible this year. Thank you for all your support!

Here's to all of you and your accomplishments in 2015! May 2016 be a prosperous, joyous and service above self year for all!

Please note that our hours of operation during the holiday season are as follows:

• Thursday, December 24, 2015 - Closed
• Friday, December 25, 2015 - Closed
• Monday, December 28, 2015 - Closed
• Tuesday, December 29, 2015 - 9:00am - 5:00pm EST
• Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - 9:00am - 5:00pm EST
• Thursday, December 31, 2015 - 9:00am - 12:30om EST
• Friday, January 1, 2015 - Closed

Tip of the Week: Story formatting

Story with different fonts

Your new story is ready to go but you notice that the font and font size for the paragraphs is not the same. The look of the text you typed in directly into the editor looks different than the text you copied in. Some sentences are in a different color, and you want to change this. Short of having to rewrite your entire article, isn't there anything you can do to remove all that extra formatting?

A hidden secret, did you know that you can easily remove all formatting from your stories and widgets? Think of it like a 'restore to default' option!

When you want to remove the formatting that appears in your stories, simply highlight the text you want to edit and click on the "Remove Formatting" button. This changes the font, font size, and color to what is set as the default for the website theme you are using. 

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. 

Tip of the week: Cancel scheduled emails

Sometimes you may need to cancel an email and stop the system from sending it. While emails that have already begun to be sent cannot be stopped, did you know you can cancel scheduled emails?

Cancelling a scheduled email is just as easy as scheduling it. To cancel an email and revert it back to draft mode, navigate to the Email Message Center first. Under the Status column, you will see a list of emails scheduled and when they are set to be sent out.


Simply click on 'Cancel' under the Actions column and confirm your action when you see the pop up box. Your email will be reverted back to Draft mode, after which you will be able to edit it, modify the distribution list, delete it or simply reschedule it for another date or time. It's that simple!

Avoiding spam filters

You and your organization rely on the smooth flow of communication between members to share important information. If your emails are being blocked or identified as spam, it creates a disconnect in your organization because important details may be missed. All email clients now have automatic spam filters that rate every incoming message according to set criteria to determine whether or not they might be spam.While it isn't possible to predict every factor an email client uses to identify spam, it is possible to adopt some basic practices to help avoid having your organization's messages get blocked or get relegated to the junk folder.

Know what spam sounds like

Spam filters check the entire content of your message and detect certain factors, phrases, and wording they regard as spam and then score your email. The filters analysis is largely based on what others have identified as spam in the past. If your message reads too much like previously identified spam mail, they will mark it as spam as well. So how does spam exactly sound? Think about all the phrases all those emails you move to your junk mail contain. Talking about large sums of money, including words like 'free' or using 'dollar signs' in your subject line, excessive use of exclamation points, all are indicators of what is considered a possible spam message. SpamAssassin, a mail filter used to identify spam shared a sample set of criteria that if found in your email results in a higher spam score:

• Money back guarantee (2.051 points)
• Contains urgent matter (.288 points)
• Talks about lots of money (.193 points)
• Describes some sort of breakthrough (.232 points)
• Looks like a mortgage pitch (.297 points)

After accumulating all points, if your spam score exceeds a certain threshold, your email will go directly to the recipients junk folder.

Know what spam looks like

Your words aren’t the only thing that gets your messages marked as spam. The appearance of the email can also trigger the spam filters. Things like brightly colored fonts, image to text ratio, emails containing large attachments, all are factors that lead your email directly to the junk folder.

Let's consider the following legitimate email:

“Our Rotary Club is on the verge of an IMPORTANT BREAKTHROUGH!!!! Over the last decade we have RAISED almost $800,000 from the community to help pay-off the outstanding mortgage on the recreation center. We NEED TO RAISE ANOTHER $15,000 BY THE END OF THIS YEAR in order to set our fundraising record!! If we manage to do this, the state charity fund will MATCH our 2015 donations DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR and invest that sum back into much needed community improvements!!!!! Wouldn’t it be nice to get some of our TAX MONEY BACK? Our town needs this money and we NEED YOUR HELP! Together, we can make history! Help us today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.” 

Clearly, this message is an important one for the club and while the thought behind capitalizing, highlighting and using different font sizes certain phrases might be to draw attention to those points, the reality is, that by doing so, you increase the risk of low email delivery rates. The use bright of colors, especially red and green and using fonts that are too big or small are triggers that flag emails as spam.

Avoid sounding like an ad. Skip the sales pitch language whenever possible, reduce technical jargon and keep your message as simple as you can. The same concept also applies to your bulletin. Check out our Best Practices section for bulletins to learn more about how you can ensure you're sending filter friendly bulletins.

Spam filters also look behind the visible text and images, at the source code of your message. If your email is formatted with buggy HTML the spam filters might flag it as malicious code, which is why we never recommend copying content directly out of Microsoft Word to an email editor, but rather pasting your content from Word to a program like Notepad first, and then to your email editor. This is because when you paste content directly from a software like Word, you unknowingly also copy all the invisible formatting code used by that software. Not to worry! You can still prepare your content in Microsoft Word. Just follow the instructions we have on how to safely paste your content into the ClubRunner Editor window.

When you use ClubRunner to send your emails to members, your message is sent through our servers and we take great care to ensure that our sender reputation remain high with ISP's. We'll always do everything we can to combat factors that we can control to reduce spam scores but for more information on dealing with spam or blocked emails, visit our knowledgebase.