Walking Clubs Use the Internet

Dateline: 09/21/98

Walking clubs can use the Internet to find new members, communicate with club members, and to publicize their events.  Walkers benefit from the club web sites as they find out more about the organizations and opportunities.  Clubs who have web sites report that they get a steady trickle of new members and new participants from the web site, and get the most use out of email between their club officers, members, and other walkers.

Email is the easiest way for clubs to use the Internet.  All you need is a computer and an email or internet access account.  Clubs can get free email through Juno, or set up a free web-based email account with Hotmail, Yahoo, or other such services.

Club Uses:

• Find out your club members' email addresses and use email send out the club newsletter, recruit workers for events, etc.
• Enlist a member with email to be the email contact for your club.
• Print your club's email address on all your brochures and membership applications.
• Send press releases directly to news media that take email submissions.
• Send attached files
• Communicate with other clubs, state organization.
• Join Walklist email group and announce club events to the 700 subscribers, or the Racewalking Email group.

Club Web Presence

What you need:
1. Computer
2. Software for creating websites: Web pages are simple text pages with format codes added. You can use any text editor to create a web page. Windows Notepad works just fine, but you may want to get an HTML editing program to make things easier. Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher and other word processing programs  all create web sites as well as regular documents and brochures.  More specialized Web editors such as Microsoft FrontPage and shareware editors are also readily available.
3. Adding graphics: To add a photo or logo, you will need to scan it with a scanner or draw it with a drawing program, then save it either as a GIF or a JPEG image. Newer graphics programs do that, but old ones don't.
4. Place to put your web site on the Web:
    a. Online service: America OnLine, Compuserve, and Prodigy all provide "web space" for subscribers to put their web pages at no additional cost. Instructions are provided for creating web pages and putting them on the web.
    b. Internet Service Provider: If you subscribe to a local or national Internet Service Provider, you will generally get "web space" provided. Ask them if you have web space and search for the instructions on how to put your pages on the Web.
    c.  Free web space:  See the Net Links on the Personal Web site for places to get free web space.  There may be restrictions, and you still need to be able to get onto the Internet to upload and update the files.
5. Uploading your web pages: You will need an FTP program or method - some Internet Service Providers have tools to do this. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and means copying the files from your computer onto another computer that is on the Internet. A good shareware FTP program is CuteFTP.

What To Have on Your Club Web Page

• Club logo or photos of club members/events
• Club contact information: address, officers names and addresses and phone numbers and email addresses. Be sure to link the email addresses to make them easy to use.
• List of upcoming events with full information: Convert your event brochure into a web page to give full info. Include photos or maps to the event.
• Club meeting information: When and where, include a map and directions.
• Previous minutes
• Newsletter online
• Club photo album online
• List of other area events
• Links to other walking web pages:
  AVA Volkssport and Walking Index http://www.ava.org
  Walking at About.com: http://walking.about.com
  Links to other area/state club pages

Publicize your web page

• Enter your web page URL and information into web search engines such as Yahoo and Excite and Infoseek so people will be able to find you.
• Send an email to walking.guide@about.com with the web page URL so it can be added to the Club Net Links.
• Send an announcement to walklist@yahoogroups.com announcing your new club web site.
• Place an announcement on the Usenet Newsgroup misc.fitness.walking announcing your new club web site.
• Send a press release to your local newspapers, radio and TV stations announcing your new club web site. Include the URL of your web site in any press releases you send out to announce events in the future.

• Include your web page URL on all your event flyers and brochures.

Who is Out There?

Each week I add more clubs to our Net Links lists.  Come on by and see who is new and how their sites have grown.

Walking Clubs - overview of clubs of many types.
Racewalking Clubs
Volkssport Walking Clubs - listings by country and state.