Clubs are in a jam when it comes to the Web, members want
informative, interactive, and private web sites or networks, just like at their
office, but after discovering the price tag, probably don’t want to fund the
development of such a site. If an individual club wanted to design, develop,
host, administer, and manage a system similar to the ourClubSite.com model,
it would easily be in the $100,000
neighborhood, plus continuing costs for connectivity, maintenance, and
enhancements. Because of this prohibitive cost and complexity, many clubs have
decided to forgo the use of the Internet as a true service tool. Some clubs
have created web sites to promote membership or real estate and provide some
general information, but almost none offer truly valuable day-after-day service
to members.
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ourClubSite.com can be "plugged in" to an existing site
or stand alone. |
ourClubSite.com recognized the need for an easy to operate, yet dynamic
and functional on-line information system designed with service and affordability
as its primary goals. Not often do value and affordability come together,
but because our ClubSite.com expects to enroll the majority of the
American private and
semi-private clubs into its service over the course of the next two years,
the savings is thanks to the volume of users,
not the level of service or quality delivered.
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What is ourClubSite? |
ourClubSite.com is the combined product of years of
experience in the information technology and private club fields. The company
has been designed and developed to assist private and semi-private clubs in the
delivery of high-tech service to every generation of their membership.
Corporate America has been developing ways to service the needs of its clients
for many years and certain standards of excellence have been established. The
founders of ourClubSite.com have
helped develop these benchmarks and are offering this experience to the clubs
of America.
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Virtual Private Network
Contrary to the public, marketing-style web sites that are
becoming commonplace in the club industry, ourClubSite.com
delivers a "Members Only" Virtual Private Network, serving only those
individuals and families that already belong to the club. As a 24 hour,
interactive concierge-style service, ourClubSite.com
enables your club to deliver and receive information around the clock from
around the world. Each club’s portion of ourClubSite.com
is protected by user names and passwords, permitting only its members
and some staff to access their club and member information. Club members
personalize their own profile in the Directory, with as much or as little
information as they wish to contribute. Although the club is on the Internet,
it actually more secure than the bulletin board in the locker room. |
To ensure return and consistent visits, a web presence must
be kept current and accurate. ourClubSite.com
has developed a cutting-edge administrative process that enables virtually any
staff member to keep the club’s information updated in less than a half-hour
per week. In fact many of these duties can be spread to the department most
closely related to the data, the kitchen can update the Food section while the
swim coach post meet news and practice schedules.
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Customizable
As the result of enormous amounts of consultation and research, our
ClubSite.com is the perfect fit for the vast majority of clubs.
The same system is made available for use by all the enrolled clubs, but each
club can chose to use whichever features it finds valuable and can even
customize how many of them function. The club controls the system, not the other way around.
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One Stop Shopping- No Technical Requirements
All a club needs to enroll in the ourClubSite.com service is access to the Internet.
Nothing fancy or technical is required, an AOL or People PC account for $25/month is plenty.
ourClubSite.com hosts and administers the entire system, the clubs supply the content.
No hardware, software, licenses, or connection costs are left for the club to pay. One affordable
lease payment and the club is up and running. As a side note, ourClubSite.com
does not and will never integrate into your club management software for security and
privacy reasons. Please consider this level of integration very carefully, the efficiency is
tempting but very risky.
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Relationship & Continued Enhancements
ourClubSite.com is committed to forming the same type of relationship with
its enrolled clubs as they would with a local programmer or consultant. Since the
founders of ourClubSite.com learned their trade at a
small consulting firm themselves, they are very familiar with customer service.
The ourClubSite.com system is obviously standardized, but amazingly flexible.
Thanks largely to the personal relationship that ourClubSite.com
and its staff wish to form with all of the enrolled clubs, the service promises
to get better and better as time moves on. ourClubSite.com
wants to know what additional functionality its clubs would like to have
access. By the way, these improvements are included in the lease arrangement at
no additional cost.
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Training & Support
Although not much is needed, two hours of training and
technical support are included in the setup fee. On screen directions and a
little practice will make experts out of anyone.
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Features |
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ourClubSite.com’s system includes more features than most can imagine.
Many of the features are
suitable for all types of organizations, and a growing number are perfect for
private clubs. The Reservations, RSVP, Menus, Pro Shop and Functions tabs promise to impress
even the most web-savvy managers and members. User groups have been most
impressed by the ease of use and updating made possible by in the our
ClubSite.com system, which allows
clubs to risk putting dated material on their site. |
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ourClubSite.com is
an interactive and personalized system, thanks largely to an impressive Member
Directory that serves as the backbone for the system. Depending on the member
who has logged in and their respective membership rights and authority, every
feature presents different options. The Calendar, News, and Sign Up features
are sorted by Committee/Area, which enables the clubs to divide the system by
their membership categories, teams, activities, age groups, etc...
Additionally, a Committee/Area can be made Private, thereby blocking access to
the information from any member that is not given permission. This feature is
great for Boards |
The list of features included in the ourClubSite.com system is too long
to detail, but some deserve
special mention ( the table that follows details some of our many features).
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Highlighted Club Features
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Reservations - Create a list of meals and activities that the membership
is welcome to reserve space for on-line. Court and tee times(if you
even require them), dinner at the Grill, and anything else is just a
few clicks away. Members fill out a few boxes, click send, and you get
an email letting you know they are coming. You can warn the members if
timing is a problem.
RSVP – Special events are one of the biggest challenges for the staff,
but provide some great fun for the members. Let them get the details,
register on-line, and even check the list for their friends. This
module tracks available spots and has switches for Members Only/
Guests Welcome and Whole Family/Adults Only.
Menus – The Chef can let everybody know what’s cooking. Turn on the
Specials and Message to the Chef tab for some great information. No
other service around takes care of the kitchen like ourClubSite.com.
Pro Shop – Much like the Menus tab, the Pro can list his/her whole
catalog of goods and services, receive messages (via email forms),
and list Specials. It’s better than eCommerce, it’s eService. There
are special icons for New, Special, even Clearance items.
Private Functions – Those private parties sure pay a lot of bills,
if only sponsorship wasn’t such a pain to the membership. Now you can
load in a list of functions, the cost options, availability, and let
the members fill out forms on-line to sponsor those profitable little
parties.
Surveys – Decisions are best made with all the facts and opinions
known. With this module, you can enter a survey with straight text
and/or drop down box (multiple choice) answer choices. Find out what
the masses are thinking, quickly and easily.
Member Directory- a searchable, member-controlled
listing, which can include information about the member, his/her spouse, family,
education, hobbies, occupation, seven custom questions, and a picture. Just a
last name or member number (required) to a life story can be included.
Members can electronically break the ice, its great for new members.
Other Great Features- clubs can also utilize the
Calendar, News, Meetings, Favorite Links, Resource Reservation, Jobs, For
Sale (Great for Home/Lot Sales), and Home features.
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Cost |
ourClubSite.com has packaged up the finest Internet-based
information and communication system the club’s money can buy, regardless of
budget. Leasing is the only way to use the
system because so little is demanded in the way of technical resources at the
club. This system can not simply be put on a CD, sold, and installed on your
office pc. If ourClubSite.com sold
its system, each enrolled club would end up paying more per month to install and run this software
than our lease fees.
No matter what the club’s perception as to the costs to
build an ordinary web site, comparing apples to apples with the service that our
ClubSite.com provides is almost
impossible. Just the software and hardware required to start a web site with
features similar to what ourClubSite.com
provides would cost a club more than a year or two of lease fees. The
programmers, designers, consultants, system engineers, hosting, connectivity,
administration, and maintenance costs would be unbelievable. ourClubSite.com encourages the clubs
that are evaluating its service to seek outside opinions, they have been
nothing short of amazement. Technical people are impressed at the level of
functionality of ourClubSite.com, and
blown away when they learn of its affordability. |
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Believe it or not, we provide all of this functionality for only $75 per month, based on a one-year commitment.
An hour or so of training is all that is required to get your club up and running.
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