After nearly a year of deliberation, planning, evaluation, and development by the Communications Committee, Board of Directors, and Webmaster, I am pleased to report that the Peninsula Ski Club has a new, modernized website up and running at http://peninsulaskiclub.com.
After considering a few different hosting options for our new site, we settled on a comprehensive club management platform called ClubExpress, which is in use by more than a thousand clubs and associations around the country, including dozens of ski clubs. PC Magazine gives it five stars and picked it as their Editors’ Choice two years in a row. You can read their review at:
http://www.pcmag.com/review/344711/clubexpress
ClubExpress provides far more than just web hosting. It includes an integrated membership database, an event calendar, online registration for activities and trips, financial accounting and reporting, photo albums, news articles and blogs, and a document repository, among other features. It also facilitates online payments via credit or debit cards. We don’t have that feature in place just yet, but hope to offer it in the near future.
By now, every PSC member with a valid, functioning email address should have received a welcome message containing a default username and password, along with instructions for logging in and updating your member profile. If you don’t remember seeing that message, check your spam or junk mail folders to be sure the email didn’t get miscategorized. You can read more about the switch from the old web site to the new, and the steps you need to take, in the article entitled “Transition to New Web Site,” available, of course, in the News section of the new website.
While there’s a lot of capability with ClubExpress, it comes with a certain amount of complexity. To help folks get started, I will be presenting an overview of ClubExpress at our April 13 meeting, focused on the basic features that most members will want to know about. Anna’s has wi-fi, so feel free to bring your mobile devices (laptop, tablet, or smartphone) so you can follow along for yourself. Those of you who want to take a deeper dive may be interested in the ClubExpress User Manual, available online at:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/ClubExpressDocument/ClubExpress_User_Manual_v7.2.pdf
The website as you see it at the moment is just the beginning. We anticipate adding content on a regular basis, and you will be able to contribute as well, through features such as member photo albums. One of the things to watch for within the next few weeks is our 2018 ski trip schedule, with a new look and the ability to register for trips online. I anticipate improvements to make the site friendlier to smartphones and at some point we may be able to offer a mobile app as well.
To conclude, the Board of Directors is excited to bring this new service to our members, and we are hopeful that our updated online presence will assist in recruiting the next generation of PSC members. We expect ClubExpress to streamline many of the club’s operations and we believe it will improve your experience as well. To take full advantage of ClubExpress’ capabilities, we will be tweaking some of our longstanding policies and procedures, so please bear with us over the coming months as we make adjustments. This will be a learning process for all of us—officers, trip captains, and rank-and-file members—but we are confident that the end result will be worth the effort.
If you have questions or run into problems using the new site, please send a detailed email to webmaster@peninsulaskiclub.com and I will do my best to help.
Tom Crockett
PSC Webmaster