A whole load of Events updates (and a few bug fixes) today. We have a lot more coming soon as well, so watch this space!
January 25, 2012
Toby Vacher
January 24, 2012
Sam
5 Things To Do To Prepare Your Group for the Year Ahead
As we all prepare for the year ahead with personal resolutions and goal setting, it is also a time to sit down and prepare your group for the trials and tribulations of the next 12 months.
With my own groups I have run in the past there were a few things I’d do at the start of every year to ensure I was prepared for everything it could throw at me, and here are the 5 I think are the most important:
1) Review Last Year
It is impossible to adequately plan for the next year without knowing your current state of affairs. How many members does your group currently have? By how many members did it grow (or shrink!) last year? What were the things that worked really well, and what didn’t work so well? I normally brainstorm on a piece of paper first before transferring it to a computer document for easy storage and reference. You could even share this with your group using our file sharing tools.
2) Set goals and plan ahead
It is no secret that the most successful people, businesses and groups, are the ones who have a clearly defined strategy going forward; and you can’t craft a strategy without knowing where you want to get to. What is your group’s purpose? What are you doing to do this year to meet and further expectations? Now, how are you going to do it?
If you’re running events, think about dates, invite lists, venues and how you’re going to promote them, as well as schedule for when each thing is going to be done by. If you’re sending out newsletters, do you have a rough idea of the content you will be sending out; can you write it in advance? Which date will each newsletter need to be sent out? Schedules are so important to keep on top of everything.
3) Make Sure Your Member Database Is Up to Date
It’s no use having a membership database if all the member details are out of date. I will always start the year by contacting all the members of my group and ensuring I have the correct details for them. Obviously it depends on your group which details are the most important to have, but for me, it has normally been full name, address, phone number, email and more recently, social media profiles. With GroupSpaces you can do it with the simple click of a button.
4) Get Finances in Check
If like me, your group has some financial dealings, it is always worth making sure your finances are up to date. I try to chase up any unpaid invoices, as well as ensure all expenses are paid, and our income is appropriately recorded. If you manage your group with us we make this quick and easy, outlining any outstanding payments, as well as totals over the last year, but if you take payments the old fashioned way with checks and cash you could just use a simple Excel spreadsheet or good old pen and paper.
5) Speak To Your Members
It’s always worth organising a face-to-face meeting, a Skype meetup, or just an email discussion to prepare for the coming year. What are your members’ expectations? What do they want to see from the group over the next 365 days? Be prepared to listen and take notes, and also realise this could drastically affect your goal setting!
There we have it! Those are 5 things I think every group manager should do at the start of every year, what about you? Anything else to add that I’ve missed?
Let us know by leaving a comment below!
Image Credits: Capeside., pavelrybin
January 10, 2012
Toby Vacher
How To: Collect your 2012 membership fees and create a group shop online!
New for 2012 :
- Collect membership fees for 2012 with recurring reminders and multiple membership types.
- Create an online shop to sell t-shirts, merchandise or anything you want!
Taking payments offline with endless bits of paper, checks, cash and trips to the bank can be a real pain! GroupSpaces lets you easily manage, receive and track payments online.
You can request payments via e-mail to specific member lists or your whole member database, and now also set up multiple subscription types with recurring reminders, and create items to sell in an online shop, adding customization options to anything you sell.
or read more below for an overview of our new payments features!
- Collecting membership subscriptions for this year
- Setting up an online shop to sell anything online
- Sending one-off bills via e-mail to specific members or sub-groups
Read the rest of this entry »
January 4, 2012
Sam
Allow Me to Introduce Myself…
A New Year is upon us, and as everyone ushers in a fresh start for 2012 it is no different here at GroupSpaces with the addition of…well, me!
My name is Sam and today officially marks my first day at GroupSpaces as “Community Manager”. It may give illusions of grandeur, but fear not, my job in its simplest form is to be the link between you, our users (I think we should call you “Groupies”?) and us as a company. Don’t worry, Toby hasn’t been fired! We will be working together as part of your Community Team.
I graduated from Brunel University, UK, in 2008, and whilst there I was the Chairman of the basketball club for two years. I encountered endless problems trying to manage everyone, from collecting membership fees to organising get-togethers, it was all a bit of a hassle. When I came across GroupSpaces I thought it was pretty cool, so didn’t think twice about applying for the role they were advertising. I never thought two months later I’d be writing a blog post introducing myself to everyone!
I’ve always been fascinated with the power of the internet and social media, and as a side project I launched my own website, Hoopsfix.com, a British basketball news blog in early 2010. When I am not working on that, I spend countless hours reading about the internet and online communities, as well as entrepreneurship.
Sitting here at my desk looking across the GroupSpaces empire (read: desks and computers), I feel inspired and motivated for the coming year! I have a lot of plans on what I’d like to do here, and it all revolves around on making your experience with us absolutely awesome!
I will be blogging regularly, drawing your attention to cool features and showcasing some of your best GroupSpaces. I also want to get the conversation flowing through Facebook and Twitter, to get your opinions on how to make GroupSpaces even better!
Please do reach out and say hello, I’d love to get to know you all a little more. Leave a comment below, tweet @GroupSpaces, like our Facebook page to stay in touch with updates and post us a message, or if you’d prefer you can email me at helpdesk@groupspaces.com, I promise to reply to each and every one of you (unless Toby gets there first)!
I hope 2012 sees your groups continue to grow, whilst GroupSpaces continues to help you to manage your group online in the easiest way possible (with a whole host of new features expected in the coming months!).
-Sam
(oh, and if you’re reading this having never heard of GroupSpaces or what we do, and don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, read about us here!)
December 21, 2011
Toby Vacher
Simpler, Speedier, Searchable Settings!
As much as I like writing help center articles(!), we’d prefer it if you never actually had to read them! Everything should just make sense, right?
Well, in line with our ‘Making it easier to manage your group online’ mission statement, we’ve just released a simpler, faster and even better looking ‘All Settings’ page!
It does exactly what the title suggests. All settings can now be found in one place, under the settings menu of your management toolbar.
Searchable Settings
For anything you can’t find immediately, we have a new search box that will suggest settings for the term you search for. Try ‘Privacy’ for everything related to restricting access to pages, or hiding e-mail addresses from the public, for example. A search for ‘Picture’ will bring up your group logo, your header image and everything related to photo galleries as well. If we can’t find settings that match your search, we’ll suggest useful help articles instead.
Some useful settings you might have missed…
All related settings (like everything related to what shows on your group website, or everything about how you manage and display member information) can be found in the relevant sub-section on the left hand side.
Who can send and receive e-mails?
Have your tried our E-mail Discussion List feature yet? The E-mails section of the settings page lets you choose which member lists are allowed to e-mail each other, and whether replies go to the author or the whole list. Let your members start e-mailing each other, with just a few clicks!
Welcome message and sign-up information
Did you know you can customize the messages displayed on the join group form, and the welcome e-mails that you send when you add new members? Both these messages can be changed in Members settings.
Get your group found in search
If you’d like potential new members to be able to find your group in search, both on the web and through the GroupSpaces ‘Search for a group near you‘ page, make sure your group’s Visibility is enabled. If your group meets in a physical location, why not add it to the map in the About your group section? This will let people find your group just by searching for their city or zip/postal code as well (make sure the pin is in the exact postcode area of the map to allow this to work).
Let us know how the new settings page works for you
We’d love to hear your feedback about the new settings page! Just leave a comment below, or e-mail us. If you have ideas for new settings that you think would be helpful, please suggest them.
Toby Vacher
December 14, 2011
Toby Vacher
Site Updates: Wednesday 14th December 2011
December 1, 2011
Toby Vacher
Site Updates – Thursday 1st December 2011
Lots of new additions and bug fixes today to help make managing your group even easier!
November 24, 2011
Toby Vacher
Facebook Login and Event Integration Temporarily Offline
Due to necessary updates to our ‘Facebook Integration’ features, we have had to take these features offline for a short time while we work on rolling out the upgrades. We will re-enable these features as soon as possible, so please accept our apologies for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience.
The affected features are:
- ‘Connect with Facebook’ login option – If you currently use this as your only means of logging in, use the ‘Forgot Password’ link on the ‘Sign In’ form. This will send you an e-mail with instructions for how to create an account associated with that e-mail address.
- ‘Post event to Facebook’ option on the create event page – Use the ‘Share’ button on the event page to post a link to the event to your Facebook wall, as an alternative until this feature is back online.
November 16, 2011
Toby Vacher
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