Introducing Clubsites and exciting updates to the Clubs New Zealand Mobile App

The latest version of the Clubs New Zealand mobile app is almost complete and we need some clubs to help with testing. 

The major upgrade for this version is allowing you to advertise upcoming events and notifications direct to your members, and to groups within your membership. For example you can advertise a band playing in three weeks to all of your members on the home page of the app or send a notification to all bowls players advising of a tournament at the club next Saturday.

We need a couple of clubs with a large number of their members already using the app to help with testing this new feature. If this sounds like you please contact leigh@clubsnz.com

Clubsites

This new feature also works in conjunction with our new Clubsites. Clubs New Zealand is now offering clubs a FREE single page professional website which contains all of the important info about your club. And here's the coolest part, when you update the website with a new event, it automatically updates the app with info about your event directly to your members.

Clubsites will be $150 to setup and then FREE. That's right, no ongoing hosting fees, no sketchy ads - just a professional web presence for your club. We are effectively doing this on our server space which we already pay for.

Yes, you can use your existing domain name (ourclub.co.nz etc) provided you have access to the settings for that domain name, or we will help if you want a new domain name. You pay for your domain name separately directly to your provider, so you retain full ownership. And that way you can easily move it if you want to pay for a website elsewhere.

You can change basic colours, and easily update events, pics, etc yourself. And Leigh will help if you get stuck.

We need a couple of clubs keen for a free website to help with testing this and we are going to waive the setup fees for those clubs. If you are interested please contact leigh@clubsnz.com

Make sure your member list is ready

If you think that this is something that you might want to be involved with in the the future, there are some things that you can work on now. To prepare for this you will need to sort out your member database to get all entries into the standard format required:

1. The member number should just be the member number - no zeros at the front or any other weird characters. Member 56 should not be 0056 or 056 or #$@56. If your system has to have four digits then start your member numbers at 1000.
2. Members names should be capitalised at the beginning (PROPER format). For example Steve, not steve or STEVE.
3. Life members should have a classification of Life Member with an expiry date of 1/1/2099
4. All members require their own email address - no sharing with partners or other family members or anyone else. One email per member.
5. Your database needs an expiry date column for all members.

The minimum fields we require in your spreadsheet are columns for Member Number, First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Expiry Date (and member type if used - Life Member, Full Member, etc).

We are working on an automatic export process which will send your member changes through to us at night for updating. For that to work, adding new members in the correct format is very important. We are hoping this will be ready early in the new year.

Once we have your member list loaded, your members will be able to download the app and click Register, then the digital membership card will show automatically and they will be ready to receive messages from the club. If we don't have your member list loaded then it is a manual process to check if they are a member and that can take days with some clubs that aren't quick to respond to our messages.

The other thing includes in this app update is the ability for members to ask for updates on all of the clubs that they belong to with one email address and login. This doesn't sound like much but here were a lot of moving parts to make this work in the app and salesforce. Having multiple membership in the app is one of the most requested features.

If you have any questions please ask Leigh by emailing leigh@clubsnz.com