35968 Scow Fall Winter - Inland Lake Yachting Association

FALL/WINTER 2006 SCOW SLANTS PAGE 21
News you can use. . .
ScowLines gets
member praise
Send your email address to the ILYA
to get on the list!
Nearly 800 subscribers, mostly
members, receive the ILYA's newest and
most popular communication medium,
ILYA ScowLines. And many members
have taken the time to respond with their
great appreciation.
The concept arose from the Promotion
Committee co-chaired by Candace
Porter and Suzi Reese, and after a
troublesome year (2005) of trying to send
informative emails to members, in 2006
Porter and the ILYA hooked up with
"Constant Contact," which standardized a
recognizeable ILYA format and simplified
the production and distribution
process.
Additionally, the program tracks bad
addresses for removal or correction.
Porter started out with a goal of at
least one issue per month in the off
season, increasing to weekly issues
during the summer. That led to the
production of daily regatta reports during
the ILYA Invitational and Championship
events. As of November 12, Porter had
produced 51 issues of the colorful,
informative, photo-packed communique.
Eventually these may be archived on the
new ILYA web site.
Currently, approximately 760 of the
ILYA's members have working email
addresses on file in the ILYA office and
receive the publication. Most of the email
address information comes from the
membership application/renewal form,
but some have contacted the ILYA office
to add their address to the list.
Executive Secretary Smith has
tracked the positive comments about the
medium. "I can't count how many
members have responded with high
praise for Candace and the newsletter."
The new on-line membership
application/renewal process should
increase the number of members receiving
ScowLines, but meanwhile, if you are
missing out, contact the ILYA office with
your email address. Send it to
ScowSlants@aol.com and ask Executive
Secretary Smith to add you to the
ScowLines list.
On-Line membership opens in 2007
Thanks to the determination of Rick
Trester, and because of his donation
along with additional financial contributions
from Peter Slocum, Sharon Garber,
and Tom Hodgson, the ILYA will have
an excellent on-line membership application
and renewal system operable soon
after the first of the year.
Internet-savvy ILYA members will
be able to renew their memberships,
purchase limited publications, and make
tax deductible donations on line, just as
they used to do using the US Mail. The
system will provide for immediate realtime
credit card verification and deposit
to the ILYA bank account.
The system will also generate an online
membership roster which will be
available to members only. The roster
will display limited information such as
the membership category, the member's
home club, the class or classes with
which the member is affiliated, and the
member's email address. The email
address information will insure that the
members also receives the ILYA on-line
newsletter, ScowLines.
The new on-line membership feature
will also be tied in to the on-line ILYA
Regatta Registration system, which was
phenomenally successful in its first two
years. In fact, approximately 80% of
ILYA regatta entries in 2006 were
received on-line. That's a terrific show of
support for this fast and easy system of
entry.
And it will only get easier in 2007,
as the membership system will tie in
automatically to the regatta registration
system. Under the new synchronized
program, only current members will be
able to access the regatta registration
page, and when they do, all the pertinent
member information (name, address, etc.)
will be entered automatically for them,
making completion of the rest of the form
a breeze.
ILYA office personnel will benefit
as well, as the on line databases for
membership and regatta entry will
become the main databases for the ILYA
office—no more re-entry of all membership
applications and regatta entry forms.
Memberships and entry forms that do
arrive by mail will be manually entered
onto the on line database.
Additionally, the ILYA will be able
to send dues reminders by email, saving
substantially on its paper notices and
postage.
Meanwhile, make sure the ILYA
office has your current email address. If
you have been getting ScowLines, then
the office has it. If not, send your address
to Jim Smith at ScowSlants@aol.com.
ILYA web site gets second makeover
Unveiled at the 2006 Winter Inland,
the ILYA web site make-over went on
line in October. The fresh, crisp look of
the new site is just a part of the reason for
the redesign. Ultimately, when the
transfer is completed, members will have
a much easier time navigating to find the
information they desire. Drop down
menus are just one way to find what you
are looking for. The site also includes a
search engine. Just type in a key word or
two and let the engine find the page you
desire. In fact, while the ILYA Office
continues to link up many of the features
from the old site, this may be the best
way to navigate to your destination.
The new site is based on Joomla!.
Joomla! is one of the most powerful
Open Source Content Management
Systems (CMS) on the planet. It is used
all over the world for everything from
simple websites to complex corporate
applications. The CMS will allow fleet
chairs, RC chairs, regatta chairs, and
designated others to access and modify
pages to provide timely updates for fleet
news, race committee news, regatta
standings and reports, etc.
The new web site will also provide
opportunity for "Member Only" information.
Eventually members will be able to
log in for pertinent information that is not
suitable for the rest of the world's
browsing public. Initially, a membership
roster will be available to members only.
The roster will contain members' email
addresses and class affiliation. This roster
will be generated automatically through
the on-line membership application and
renewal system (see the article this issue).