Positive:

1. All events – trips, meetings, socials all in one place on an easy to read calendar – members have to look only in one place.
2. Event leaders can enter their own events – distributes the workload.
3. Other functions – email all members, email all volunteers - can be done by people other than the webmaster

Negative:

1. Volunteers reluctant to learn new system, so webmaster (me) still carries an ongoing load for training & support.
2. Our club’s Difficulty Ratings were very different and had to be completely reworked to conform to the way Difficulty is set up in the Andwa System. (They needed to be reworked anyway, but that was my opinion, one that was not shared by our executive.)

Positive:

1. Andwa has helped the database situation by allowing members to modify their own data, decreasing my workload.
2. The new database setup also allows members to decide who sees their contact information and how – I like that delegation.
3. The outing sign-up process has become disjointed for our club, and the Andwa interface is poised to fix that. We are planning a soft-rollout for our 5-6 winter outings starting in January, followed by the major rollout of our 65-outing summer schedule in the spring. Rhonda seems to agree that testing the system first is a great way to go. We are also planning to set up “fake” outings for all of our members to sign up for ahead of the summer schedule. Hopefully this due diligence will prevent the system from blowing up in our face come spring.

Negative:

1. Was hoping for a member chat function.
   Rhonda says this is available as a 3rd party piece only and requires separate log-in.
   Kind of bummed but am hoping with a little cajoling we can pay Rhonda to set it up for us later. ;)

Positive:

1. Members feel that the system is more fair and much more accessible and it has introduced a great deal of flexibility, organization and structure into our trip/event posting and accessibility.

Negative:

1. There are always folk within an organization that are going to object to change, and we had a couple that belly-ached a little.
   It was the change alone that was the problem, not the system specifically.

1. I would start out working with the original basic copy, and not another club’s version. Each club is different and has different ways of doing things.
2. Otherwise, nothing else. If there was anything I didn’t like, it could always be reversed.

1. I would make the "Send out notification" of the posting of a trip "on" by default so that people who have asked to be notified when an event is posted are notified more often. Having that flag turned on by default means that the leaders have to consciously turn it off, rather than turn it on.
   In my opinion, notifications are an important bit of communication, so the easier it is to get them sent out the better off the entire membership is.
   I finally had this changed to be "on" by default just a few months ago and it was a good thing.

Great:

1. Members say lots by signing up for events. Otherwise, no other feedback.

Negative:

1. Mostly from leaders when something doesn’t work the way they think it should
   (in other words, they didn’t read the Andwa manual or our club’s manual)

Great:

1. Trips are so much easier to post and manage by the trip leaders now. They are much more empowered, I believe.

Negative:

1. Trip reports could be easier to log. The verbiage describing the link to the Trip Report facility is obscure.
2. Photos could be easier to post.

1. Event leaders need to be trained, but they don’t always want to be trained, or think they should be trained. I developed a special leader’s manual specific to our club, and put it online with clickable links. It helps, but the biggest barrier at first is getting them to enter things right, and correcting things that are not entered right. Requires vigilance and a dedicated person to review new events as they are posted, and correct the errors.
2. Event Participants – easy as pie. Click on the event link, scroll down, sign up.

1. The system is not difficult, but it takes a willingness to learn it.
   Once people get up and running with it, there are few difficulties.

1. Very little now that the system is in place and the leader manual is online.
   Mostly support for people who can’t log in, and leaders who enter trips incorrectly.
   About an hour a week.

1. After set-up, there is very little other than answering others' questions and updating the database.
   We don't have a sign-up facility through the website so we get our membership list from the National office and upload the list via a .xls file import into the Access database.

1. Webmaster should be prepared to put in a lot of time during set up process, learning the system, how it works, preparing a club-specific user manual and training event leaders.
2. Club processes & procedures may need to be reworked.

1. The use of the database will totally change, and from an efficiency standpoint, for the better. We will be moving from Excel to Access, causing a little software training to happen and the timing of entries to be more critical as this directly affects the sign-up process. Previously the Excel process was more behind-the-scenes and not as crucial to keep maintained as often. Now, being slack on the database entries could keep folks from signing up, causing substantial heartache. You have to use Access or SQL with the Andwa calendar, you may not be using either right now but you will have to learn one of them.

1. Rhonda & Jo were a joy to work with.  Incredibly responsive, very patient in answering all my questions, and helpful in troubleshooting problems (which were few).
2. Our club exports member data once a week from a national database, and imports it to the Andwa System by way using Access. For most clubs this process will be different, but the need to use Access seems to be the same.
3. The Andwa system provides a function to E-mail all members. This can be done using HTML format, but it is NOT a full-on e-mail marketing tool. Clubs wishing to send a regular fully-formatted HTML email newsletter to members (and potential members) will want to use an external service (Such as Constant Contact) that is set up to manage recipients’ responses, eg. Unsubscribe, option to view as text, option to sign up for special interest emails, reports on link tracking, etc.

1. Make sure you have either member buy-in or solid board member buy-in. It will take several people to put it together, and even more to sell it to your organization. We had board buy-in, but the board didn’t necessarily know the details of the product when that decision was made. This is OK but can cause grief for certain individuals who are in the minority (the type with 20/20 hindsight!).
2. Remember with Andwa, you are paying for a previously-designed software package, so your investment is priced accordingly and is a good deal.
3. If you have the appropriate funding or volunteers to program something from scratch, that may be a better way to go only if your goals for the project differ substantially from what Andwa offers; i.e., paying a programmer for something similar will definitely cost more.