For the last few months I've been working on a project, building a website for car clubs to maintain their membership data online. As a long-time car club committee member, I'm very aware of the issues faced by the volunteers who run the clubs.

What is OurCarClub?

OurCarClub is designed to make the task of managing a car club easier for the volunteers who do it. The application has been developed by people who have been involved in car clubs for many years, and understand the issues intimately.

Does this sound familiar?

Most clubs have a Membership Secretary, Secretary or Treasurer who is responsible for maintaining "the member list".

Usually, this is an Excel spreadsheet on their PC. Some clubs have a locally maintained database (perhaps using Microsoft Access or FileMaker Pro), or an Address Book (like Outlook or Entourage). There are some clubs that have some form of shared resource, such as a file on Google Docs or a copy of the spreadsheet saved on the club website for download. And then there are some clubs that riffle through the receipt book to track current memberships.

Ultimately, there is always one person on the committee who's always being asked to supply a list of email addresses, or phone numbers, or mailing addresses and so on. Are you the de facto Directory Services Operator?

OurCarClub.com.au

The OurCarClub.com.au service provides your club with an on-line database, that requires only a web browser to operate. If you're reading this, you have everything you need to use OurCarClub.

Being on-line, the database is not the sole responsibility of one committee member - the Treasurer, the Secretary, the Magazine Editor and so on can each access the data to perform their official duties and obtain absolutely up-to-date member information. But your data is only visible to your committee members, or the people you choose to grant access to.

The system is always available, and can be used anywhere, including on your iPhone or other smart-phone/portable device.

The database is hosted using state of the art facilities, routinely backed up and managed. Because it doesn't reside on one club member's PC, you don't have to worry about what would happen to your club's records if that PC had a disk failure, or a virus. And you can always extract your data to generate an off-line copy, or for use in other programs or for other purposes.

Features of the OurCarClub service

The database is designed specifically for Car Clubs, and stores the following information:

• Members, past and present
• Vehicles, current ownership and previous club-member owners
• Committee Members
• Assets owned by the club
• Events held by the club, including attendance records
• Day Book entries, recording of non-club use of club-plated vehicles

Additionally, OurCarClub provides easy to use communication channels to ensure your members are kept up-to-date with Club news:

• bulk-email service: send an email to [yourclub]@ourcarclub.com.au and all and only your current club members will receive it.
• text-messages service (SMS) - send a text to all your current members to inform them of late changes to events.