Draft Key Messages for Parents - for review

I've shared Draft Key Messages for Parents - for review

Message from simeb98ll@gmail.com:

Here is a link to the Parental key message document which I have shared with you.  Penny

Click to open:

• Draft Key Messages for Parents - for review

Google Docs makes it easy to create, store and share online documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

Calendars, Pictures and More

Our next step was to integrate the Google Calendar. Our club can participate in 25-30 galas over one season alone and need to inform members what galas are planned and who they are aimed at. Nearer the time some members will need to access more specific information and share arrangements for the actual attendance. Google calendar has been ideal for this. We have been able to integrate it nicely on the website so it is shown both as a calendar and as a list of upcoming events. Again, updating is easiest handled through a collaborative approach. We provide all members with access to the calendar so they can all make updates as necessary. An additional bonus of introducing Google Calendar has been the seamless integration to Google Map. As long as we add the post code or even the name of the pool then the calendar will show a map, so there is no longer a need for posting up exact and exacting directions on the website.

From time to time the club takes photos of the swimmers in action. These photos are made available online in a secure 'members'-only' area on the website (due to child protection issues). Picassa, another Google product, is used to assist in publishing the photos.

During the last 5 years the club has grown significantly both in membership and achievements. This has led to an increased burden on the management committee, all of whom are unpaid volunteers. As well as meeting approximately 8 times a year at formal meetings; there is a variety of communication conducted between members between meetings. Most of this communication has been conducted using email but lately we have started experimenting with the use of Google Docs as a way of collaborating to develop documents in the virtual world. I am currently investigating the opportunity to integrate Google Docs onto the clubs website with links to documents such as Procedures and Protocols.

Until now the 'static' part of the website has been maintained using Frontpage which was the tool available for the club at the time of development. I am now keen to move away from Frontpage and am currently investigating Google Sites as an alternative but am aware that we need to think carefully about the secure members' areas before any move is made.

Keeping in contact and involving our membership is vital for the continuous success of the club. Using Google products is not only free but has been an ideal solution to many of the online challenges.

If you want to explore the site in more details have a look at www.stirlingswimming.co.uk

Case Study: Google products in use by a voluntary organisation

6 years ago when my daughters joined Stirling Swimming it became obvious that the online presence of the club was very limited, the club had recently purchased a domain name and ventured online with a couple of pages. I offered my services to take on the role of webmaster on a voluntary basis, and over the last 6 years the provision has grown and become an integral and vital part of communication within the club. Over the next couple of weeks I will go through the various products we have used at the club, hopefully it will give you some inspiration.

Background

Stirling Swimming  consists of 120+ age groups swimmers, 1 part time head coach, 9 part time coaches, a management committee of 8 permanent members and about 20 additional volunteers in various capacities.

The

key communication challenges faced by the club were:

1)      General information about club including philosophy, procedures, training times, contact details and other general information about club and swimming.

2)      Calendar of events with details on how to get to pools, who the event is for etc.

3)      Change to training – pool closing, during holidays etc.

4)      Competition entries

5)      Call for volunteers to support club

6)      Competition results and other news to membership

7)      Management committee communication

The club trains at 4 different pools across the Stirling area and has a notice board at only one of these pools.

Though club tries hard to keep a database of email addresses from members this list is never 100% up to date.

The club is managed on a tight budget therefore any development of a website and future maintenance had to be done within the club by members of the club.

Initially a basic website was constructed, mainly focusing on 1) and 2) above, the development of this  required specialist knowledge and maintenance relied on the webmaster (myself) so in order to give access for a wider group to update website and to allow this to happen in a user-friendly manner I started to look at Google products.

Google Blogger

The first new introduction was an integrated blog based on Google Blogger

Using blogger combined with feedburner allows

a)      a wider group access to updating the site, I provide them with an email address they can use for updating the site (a nice little feature of Blogger) so all it takes is the ability to send an email and the blog is updated

b)      Feedburner allows us to set up regular newsletters, we have chosen a daily schedule, whereby every day at 5PM if there is a new entry in the blog an email with a short teaser will go out to the mailing list – this mailing list is maintained not by us but by the membership as they have to sign up for the email.

c)       Blogger provides an easy interface for adding widgets and adding a couple of widgets to the blog gives the membership an easy way of navigating around the whole site. Such as Google Search with the choice of search for total Web/Linked from here/Blog

The blog and its associated features became an instant hit with parents signing up for updates allows us to post out changes to training plans etc knowing that an email will go out at 5PM to those who have signed up.

We also added an extra blog for the headcoach to allow her to communicate to the swimmers online.

Strapline - Continued

Thanks for your comments. All of them were useful and have clarified a number of points and particularly made us consider the question "What is a strapline actually for? Is it to clarify our business name or state our business proposition?"

The image at the top of the Blog currently attempts both - the top line is our 'Grasshopper' mantra and the the one underneath describes broadly where our skills lie. This may change but reflects the state we are currently at.

This week we have also completed our Strengths/Weaknesses profile and this has confirmed what we already knew - our strengths and skills put together are a good match and complement each others' well. That will explain our excellent working relationship for the last 6 years!

We are moving on now to important practical tasks. Less about soulsearching and more about building a client list and marketing campaign. These tasks may well give rise to further tweaks in our strapline so keep watching and commenting.

p'n'h

Strapline

knowledge + experience² = value

knowlege x 2experience = value

knowlege + experience x 2 = value

knowledge + experience = value

knowledge + 2 experience = value

What is the best combination for a strapline? Or can you suggest something else?