Spotlight D9790

ClubRunner Spotlight: Winners of District 9790's Best Website Award
 
We all know the importance of having a strong web presence to promote our clubs, work and Rotary. District 9790 in Australia holds a competition every year where all of its club compete for the coveted title of being the club with the best website. We spoke with the winners to learn how they went from no online identity to winning the District's best club website award.
 
District 9790 holds a competition each year where all of its clubs are invited to submit their websites to an evaluation committee, who judge the sites based on predefined criteria which includes the overall look, design, ease of navigation, the ability to find information easily, ability to contact club executives easily, and how well they promote their club and Rotary. Winners are selected from 3 different club size categories, which ranged from clubs sized between 1-15 members, 31-44 members and 45+ members.
 
This year, each club that won was using the ClubRunner platform to design their website! Using different website themes, each club had customized their website to match their own unique style. We spoke with all 3 of the winners to learn more about their award and the success they've found while using ClubRunner.
 
1 - 15 Member Category: Rotary eClub of ActioninLand (Interviewed: Bill Wilson, Webmaster)
 
We are a new eClub and needed a website that we could customize to attract members from around the world to complete their meeting make-ups with us. Our goal is to get the widest exposure we can, and grow our eClub as well as communicate with all of our members by sending them bulletins.
 
A lot of our members were already aware of ClubRunner and some had used it previously, which is why when it came time to pick a solution for our club, we did not hesitate to subscribe to ClubRunner. We have members scattered across Australia and with ClubRunner, not only can we have an online presence, but we also can keep in touch with our members using the email manager and can easily link to our online meetings from within our website. In fact, a bonus for us as an eClub has been the hassle-free procedure to invoice our members.
 
The customization options with ClubRunner has allowed us to embed forums on our website which we use to communicate with our members and posting meeting minutes online is a breeze. We even keep an archive of all our meeting minutes for members to access. We especially also like that we can have a website design that is inline with Rotary's branding and new digital guidelines with the built-in Rotary website template provided to us.
 
Having won an award from the district for the best website means that we have been successful in not only promoting Rotary but also our club activities. We hope to gain a larger audience from around the world and have more Rotarians complete their make ups with us. Visit us at http://www.actioninland.net.
 
31 - 44 Member Category: Rotary Club of Numurkah (Interviewed Lou Hamon, Webmaster, PR Chair and Bulletin Editor)
 
We were on the lookout for a system that would help us promote our club's activities, history
and allow us to record part activities in an appealing manner. Furthermore, we needed a system that would provide us with administrative functions such as email, member directory and an event registration module. Our membership data was all maintained on paper, and as we grew, we knew that we would need some automation software to help us manage our club better.
 
While we used WordPress for our website, ClubRunner not only offered us a website solution, which was easier to maintain but also offered all the solutions we needed to simplify our administrative tasks. Today, our club has become much more dynamic with more and more members realizing the potential of our website. It is the first port of call for members to access the member directory, activity information and it enables the public to see the activities of our club as well as the benefits of being part of Rotary, therefore, we are able to promote our club activities much more effectively than we did previously.
 
Though, we are still learning more about all that is has to offer, having won the "best website in the District" award, we're positive that we're on the right track and made the right decision to go with ClubRunner. Their support has been very helpful in assisting us to build our website, answering all of our questions. Visit our website at: http://www.numurkahrotary.org.
 
45+ Members: Rotary Club of North Albury (Interviewed Ian Bishop and Clark Potter, Webmasters)
 
When we began looking for a solution to meet our club needs, we were looking for a superior platform that would primarily help us improve our PR and secondly improve the efficiency of our club administration, especially membership registration and maintenance. At this time, all of our membership data was maintained in Microsoft Excel, our newsletter was created using a third party tool and we lacked an online presence.
 
We began looking at local Rotary based solutions but found a neighboring club that had one of the best websites we had seen during our search, who then pointed us to ClubRunner. We are an active club that holds quite a few events throughout the year, so it's important for us to be able to share updates. ClubRunner has been most helpful in improving our club's public relations, and promoting our events. Our site provides detailed information on all our events and its very easy for us to setup our events in ClubRunner. We are even able to create emails and posters with direct links back to our events. In fact, we're now seen as being après toward thinking and progressive club. Basically, in today's time, if a club such as ours does not have a siginificant and professional web presence, we simply do not exist in the eyes and minds of many people. The web (and Google) are the first place people look, and if we're not there, we don't exist!
 
In terms of goals, we hope to publicize our activities more frequently using the bulletin feature as well. We're glad we made the move to ClubRunner and with the 'best website award', we're only going to strive to improve the face of our site further. Visit our website at: http://www.rotaryalburynorth.org.au.

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