Google Groups (groups.bellinghamscd.org) are used to manage the mailing lists and to control access to different parts of Google Workspace. The mailing list function hasn't worked as well as we wanted so MailerLite has also started to be used.

To send an email to a mailing list use your @bellinghamscd.org email and send the email to one or more of the four emails below. The email will automatically go to every member of that mailing list and includes an automatic footer with some info and a way to unsubscribe from future emails.

Replies will go back to the sender in most cases although some mailing lists allow the responder to pick if it goes to the sender or the whole group.

Example - From: President@bellinghamscd.org To: Session@bellinghamscd.org will send to all current session dancers.

• board@bellinghamscd.org - All board members + tech support are part of this group. Currently uses some personal email addresses but ideally would just be internal managed accounts.

• contact@bellinghamscd.org - Specific board members that handle communication + tech support are part of this group. Used both to receive emails from the public.

• Members@bellinghamscd.org - NEED TO MOVE TO MAILERLITE? Mailing list for current paid members of Bellingham SCD. Has an automated unsubscribe feature for people to leave the list.

• Session@bellinghamscd.org - NEED TO MOVE TO MAILERLITE? Mailing list for people enrolled in the current Session. Has an automated unsubscribe feature for people to leave the list.

We are verified on postmaster.google.com which can be used to check on emails being considered spam and ways to resolve it.

Dancers@bellinghamscd.org - This was moved to MailerLite. Main mailing list including anyone who wants to be on it. Includes all members, people that have joined through park and rec sessions, and other people that have signed up for the mailing list. Has an automated unsubscribe feature for people to leave the list. This list may be moved to another tool in the future to better manage the large list and easier self sign-up.

A Newsletter is sent out approximately four times a year to our largest mailing list. It's important to send out a newsletter with a link to the Parks and Recs playbook ASAP when it's available so dancers can signup for the upcoming session. A newsletter during the summer can also be sent out to advertise the BSCD yearly member meeting.

Mailerlite is used to handle the newsletter that is sent out to anyone who subscribes from the website or pays for a session through Parks and recs. 

• Emails have to be obtained from Parks and Recs and added manually.

• People subscribing from the website are automatically added.

• Subscription triggers a sending of the most recent Newsletter.

Campaigns are used to send out the emails. A new campaign will be created for each different Newsletter. Once the content has been created it can be saved as a template.

Automation is used to send out the latest newsletter to new subscribers. It needs to have the template it points to updated every time a new newsletter goes out.

An embedded form is used to provide a link on the website for subscribers to sign up themselves. The free version of Wordpress we use doesn't permit better methods (Blocks HTML / Javascript / Plugins).

Membership is still being determined exactly but right now just signing up for the classes through Bellingham P&R makes a person a member.

Any changes to the spreadsheet also need to be made in the google groups mailing list and vice versa. Users are added / removed through groups.bellinghamscd.org.

Shortened URL for this website is info.bellinghamscd.org

This is a Google site website that can be accessed and modified from sites.google.com.

https://bellinghamscd.org/ is a combination of the Bellinghamscd.org domain (the name) rented from HostGator (www.hostgator.com) and is hosted on the service WordPress (https://wordpress.com/log-in/). 

WordPress also manages the domain (DNS) with a manage domain section. This is where DNS records such as CNAME, TXT and more have been configured for Google Groups and Google for non-profits.

Stripe, likely influenced by Debit / Credit card companies requires a phone number. Therefore a cheap Twilio account was setup with a business number. It's just a voicemail box that recommends emailing us but also allows customers to leave a phone number for us to call back from our personal phone. This keeps our personal phone number(s) from being exposed to the public on the website / credit card statements.

Twilio is setup to play a voicemail message that I created and than uses a Twilio flow plus a Twilio function that ties into SendGrid (A stripe product) to send an email to contact@bellinghamscd.org with a link to the voicemail that the caller leaves.

A non-profit Canva account was created for making flyers and such. It's primary role is set for techsupport@bellinghamscd.org and other roles can be added as needed.