This last installment in my three part series will discuss managing other information online for your group which you may want to link to your blog.
Calendars
Google Calendar is free and you can make a new Google Calendar for your group using the login with the free gmail group account I discussed above. You may link to this calendar from within blog posts or in the sidebar lists.
Making a Google Calendar is easy and simple and I'm not giving a tutorial on it in this blog post. I wanted to make it clear that if you want a calendar you do not need a custom created calendar that you pay a web designer to create. You can take advantage of free stuff on the web instead.
Group email communication
Managing an email address book is tedious and time consuming. Trust me, I did this for a while as a volunteer job. I suggest automating this by using either GoogleGroups or YahooGroups. Both are free.
Both require that the members have an email and the members control their own data. For example if I am a member and I change my email address I do not contact the group secretary and say "I changed my email you need to update your list", instead I login to the GoogleGroup myself with my old login and then update my own data to reflect the new email. The member owns the data and the onus is on them to manage all their personal data.
Using the groups is simple because if you want all the members to see the mail you just post a note to the assigned group name such as HawkinsJuniorTennis @GoogleGroups (.com) or whatever it is.
Both of those companies keep an archive so if a member claims they never saw an email they can login themselves and read the messages online in the message list.
The lists can also be formatted so that only the leadership can post to the group. That can help keep the group running for announcements only and to keep idle chatter to a minimum. The risk with that is if multiple members have questions, which may be the same question, they will have to ask the leaders. The leaders will be stuck answering them and may answer the same question to ten different people. You can decide if you want everyone to post, so that when one person asks a question everyone sees the answer. It's a trade-off with pros and cons for each.
Do Not Over Clutter the Blog with Extra Info
It is so easy to input data for blog posts and to make sidebar links that you may be tempted to put a ton of information in that is beyond your org's sphere. Be careful about this because you need members and future members to find your blog easy to use and to find what they need.
If you have long lists such as lists of local tennis supply retail stores instead of making a long sidebar list telling the names, chunk the information to be one blog post then put that one link in the sidebar.
It is not your duty to give free advertising to local businesses but it may be a good idea to have some links to help new members.
If you accept donations from a company you may have struck a deal to put a link to their business in your sidebar. (Actually that can be a good selling point for your fundraising.) I advise to put these in your sidebar down below the most vital information unless they have paid you for advertisting space or struck a barter arrangment with you (free team t-shirts if you link to their business).
You could also sell advertising space in your blog sidebar but that is another whole project that the group could embark upon. But that is another project for another day and hopefully is someone else's job, not yours, since one person usually can't (or shouldn't) do everything in an organization.
Blog Design
I eluded to this earlier. The priority of the site or blog should be to have accurate, up to date infomration. The online data should be easy to update.
Of secondary importance is the visual design of the blog. You are not a for profit company trying to entice customers to buy your product by making something pretty for them to see.
Your members will value accurate information more than a pretty site. There is nothing more aggravating than seeing what looks like an expensive pretty website that gives registration information that expired six months ago and doesn't tell when the upcoming spring session begins!
However once you get the basics of the blog set up and have your accurate up to date information loaded, now you have time, if you so desire, to play around and make the blog look cool.
Perhaps your organization has an artistic person who wants to volunteer to spiff up the blog with different colors and graphics. But please don't make the background black or dark as it is hard to read from. Dark colors make artwork and photos pop but that's about it.
Blog Administrative Access
Now that you know your way around the blogger's pages I'll mention that you can grant access to modify the blog to more than one person. They will need to have their email for a login. Be careful about how many people have access to update the blog. With one push of a button an entire blog can be deleted or blocked from view.
Your org's blog should have access by at least two people, one being a top leadership person in the org. Should, God forbid, your blog maintenance person gets mad and quit the org, the other admin needs to update the blog access to change passwords to block out the angry person before serious damage is done to the blog.
Blog Professionalism
Blogging is fast and easy. As with all organization's publications, what is communicated needs to be careful and accurate. It is simple to write in a word processing program and do spell check and grammar check before copying the data over and pasting it into a blog post.
Your org should have rules set up for what goes on the blog and when.
Just because publishing a blog is easy do not let your blog writer post a zillion non-essential items or your members will not be able to find essential important information or may think the blog is counter productive.
If you let one person have free reign it could be risky. The blog is your public face. You need to trust the person in charge of your internet presence.
Communicating About New Blog Posts
You can use your email communications to notify members when a new blog post is published and you can directly link to the post by putting the post's URL in that email. If you do that you do not need to send an email with the duplicate information. Use your blog as the workhorse and direct your members to the data stored there. Lighten up the email content and move the data to the blog.
Conclusion
Sadly some organizations dream of fantastic expensive websites that they cannot afford so nothing gets created.
Seeking perfection, some people choose to do nothing instead of settling for second best.
A blog can be a very acceptable second best. The fact that Blogger is free is enough of a reason to start using it instead of delaying about creating a new website or hiring someone to help update the old website.
All that matters is that your blog is up to date and accurate. You need not feel pressured to post often, just post when you have something valuable to share.
It is possible to run an organization for existing members by email only but that locks out the public. If your goal is to have some kind of public presence and to help new potential members connect with you, a blog is a perfect way to do that.
I have worked with multiple organizations who wanted a way to communicate publically online but who refused the idea of using a blog. I have seen problems come from old websites with inaccurate information, wrong contact people's information, filled with dead email addressed and showing upcoming group meetings that are more than a year in the past. Please open your mind to using a blog instead of a website, it's easy and free.