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p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Hi All,<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I have realied that our next tech zoom conflicts with the Nov. program. Can we reschedule? Maybe the following Tuesday 11/22 @7:00?<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">To start, some thoughts on functionality--- (some providers are better at some of these than others. why we need to prioritize)<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">+++++<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">On Line Payments (AKA, throw money at Cheryl)<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">There are 2 basic methods of taking payments. Donation / subscription / registration monies are typically collected via forms processing (Click the choices on a page, enter payment info, submit). The selling of items typically happens via "e-commerce" aka a shopping cart. Of course you can make either method do either type of transaction, but for what we do I think we are looking at forms processing for payments<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"> Virtually all platforms support PayPal payments (2.99% + .49 cents per transaction, 2.59% without chargeback protection), some (ok, most) charge a service fee on top of the paypal fees unless you have a build-and-host-it-yourself site.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"> The platforms geared toward smaller club / member orgs typically have a preferred payment partner; if you use their preferred payment system they do not charge a service fee. eg: Wild Apricot uses AffiniPay, (2.9% + .30 per xact), Club Express has a built-in payment system (2.99%+.20 per xact), JotForm supports most processors and does not charge an additilonal fee beyond whatever the processor fees are, CoffeeCup supports most gateways and does not charge an additional fee. It is unclear if Wordpress or Wix charge transaction service fees , and Square Space does not offer pricing information of any kind.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">So, the best plan may be to not choose a merchant account until we have chosen a platform<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">+++++<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Member Engagement - Club Express and WIld Apricot are two examples of platforms that are geared toward small membership organizations. They include features such private member areas. Members can create a profile and choose what info to share with other members, there can be private file sharing, blogs and forums. This is Elizabeth's main area - I am not clear what features you are actually looking for . I know you have put some time into making a private Facebook Group. Can you open this up - if only to the committee? Maybe that will give an idea of what you are trying to put together? I'm not clear if features like the forums and/or blogs would be helpful to you<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">+++++<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">eMail Templating This is the pretty announcement emails we could use for general membership emails. <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Templates can be available for the monthly meeting announcements, event announcements, reports, etc. Cheryl - most of these platforms offer automatic invoicing, etc for member renewals - a template can be set that knows when to send the invoice, when to nudge if no response, when to expire the member if no payment, etc. <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Event announcements can have a 'click to register' link to an rsvp form with options and pricing if it is not free<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"> ++++++<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Mailboxes<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Sadly, most of the platforms I mentioned herein do NOT provide mailboxes. <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I do support the use of responsibility accounts (ie, "<a href="mailto:Treasurer@Greenmountaindogclub.com">Treasurer@Greenmountaindogclub.com</a>" etc so that the function is not closely linked with an individual; also the mailbox itself can be a repository for the communications and documents generated by that role and can pass from person to person when the responsibility changes.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">There are any number of ways around this. I have sent this email from the address <a href="mailto:WebTech@greenmountaindogclub.org">WebTech@greenmountaindogclub.org</a> - this is an alias that transparently forwards & sends mail to/from me . We can do this right now BUT - there is no standalone mailbox for an alias, and your cient has to support using an alias as a send identity. Some popular clients are really restrictive in this regard (lookin' at you, Outlook), and many people get frustrated trying to get this properly configured. So I don't think this is a great option. We can purchase hosting at cleverdot (where we have registered the domain) at a very reasonable cost and this will support literally hundreds of mailboxes. The site itself may or may not be hosted there (it is now on Weebly, I have a redirect at the Cleverdot nameservers; we can direct the domain anywhere we want)<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I have created a few sample mailboxes for you to try at my domain (this is what we would get in the above scenario)<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">To try one or more out go to <a href="https://webmail.jpivovar.net/">https://webmail.jpivovar.net/</a> and enter one of the email addresses below.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="mailto:GMDC_Delegate@jpivovar.net">GMDC_Delegate@jpivovar.net</a> <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="mailto:GMDC_Treasurer@jpivovar.net">GMDC_Treasurer@jpivovar.net</a><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="mailto:GMDC_Secretary@jpivovar.net">GMDC_Secretary@jpivovar.net</a><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="mailto:GMDC_Veep@jpivovar.net">GMDC_Veep@jpivovar.net</a><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">The password for each is 2BEaDog4All<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">++++++ Other things ++++++</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Newsletter opt-in, donation link, photo galleries, event calendars, event management, even a 'meetup' facility for ad-hoc member gatherings / training / etc are all available to some extent in many platforms. Online site management that allows multiple admins with individualized access is a great feature for an org that is basically virtual and geographically separated.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">++++++Don't worry, there's more +++++<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Jennifer<br></div></body></html>