Gentlemen start your. . .Training!

NEON training has begun for our team in the office. We spent yesterday in a couple of meetings that focused on giving us an overview of the system and how it will work for us. Emily our trainer set up a meeting on-line yesterday to provide us with a guided tour and first look at our test data in the database that they have set up for AGEHR.

While the day was a whirlwind tour it was fascinating. We began by looking at how we will now begin managing our national events. I know this may not sound all that exciting but rather than two databases that don’t communicate, we will now have just one. I know we have been saying this for months but to actually see it in front of us was very cool. This means that we as an office will be more productive and able to more efficiently serve all of our members. It also means that our entire team will have access to the event data and will be able to cross train in order to better assist our members with information regarding their event attendance. There also was this cool new feature that is going to let us. . . oh wait that is a surprise for next month! ;>)

In the afternoon we focused on general membership data management. How our current data will populate the new system, how we renew memberships and create new records for new members. The new system is more intuitive than our current system. It allows us to quickly and easily have access to the information in the system because it is powered by newer and faster technology than our current dinosaur. All of which will once again help our team to help you.

But all of that is behind the scenes and while some of you may be tech wonks who just find this as thrilling as I do, I am guessing most of you have a big “so what’s in it for me” going through your minds. So, here it is. We also got to check out the new user side of the web site. Members will log in and have access to their membership record like never before. With the ease of a dropdown box you will be able to do a variety of activities including create and review your profile (even upload a picture if you would like!), renew your membership, view your payments, change your password and the like. Simply, easily.

Just what you would want and expect from one of your favorite websites. The best part is that this functionality is being integrated within our web site and promises to be a seamless change over that will be the base of your membership experience with our website that will only get better and better as the plans of our New Initiatives Campaign continue to come to fruition over the next 2 years thanks to your continued generosity and support!

Happy holidays to you all! Talk to you next year!

New Identity Making Its Appearance

In the coming months you will begin to notice both area and national events, as well as some newsletters and other publications, using our organization’s new identity, The Handbell Musicians of America. Instead of seeing an event billed as an “AGEHR Spring Festival,” for instance, you may see an announcement for a “Handbell Musicians of America Spring Festival,”  with the tagline, “an AGEHR Sponsored (or endorsed) Event.” Similarly, you may also see a newsletter you are familiar with using the name Handbell Musicians of America with a smaller tagline reading, “an AGEHR publication.”

You will also see increased use of our new logo. And when the identity change is complete, there will be a special logo available for members to use with their own websites and publications identifying themselves as a member of the Handbell Musicians of America.

Eventually the taglines “an AGEHR Sponsored Event” and “an AGEHR Publication” will disappear and we will only refer to ourselves as the Handbell Musicians of America (or The Guild for short). But it is important to understand that while our identity is changing, we will still be the same organization. As John Pfeiffer said in Nashville, the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers is a name we will always honor and by which will always be known. But in an effort indentify ourselves as true musicians and not just a holiday-time novelty, we are taking on a new look and a new name.

So, what does this mean for you as far as registering for events or renewing your membership? Not a thing. You will still register for events the same way as before, and you will still renew your membership like before.

Of course, while our new identity is perhaps the most outwardly visible piece of the entire New Initiatives Campaign, it really is perhaps the least significant. You have already heard much about all the technology improvements, which will allow us to manage the organization better and greatly improve communication not only at the national level but the area and local levels as well. And you will soon begin to hear more about the most important aspect of the campaign, the development of new, first-rate resources for schools, faith-based organizations, and community/professional groups.

Be sure to keep watching this space, as well as E-Notes and Overtones, for further details as the campaign progresses.

Mapping our future.

While last month we were focused here in the national office on clean up of the membership records to prepare for the upgrades in technology, this month is all about mapping our data to smooth the transition into NEON's system. I know you are very jealous. ;>)

I have been working with Anne Potter of Extreme Consulting going over all of our records. We have begun to decide which information needs to be ported to the new system. We have also begun to map our data to NEON's data management system. What this means is that if you have two tables, Table 1 and Table 2, and want to move data from one to the other you have to be able to say "I want information in Table 1 Column A to move to Table 2 Column A." This is not necessarily a difficult issue but it is time consuming because you have to dig in and decipher how the information is stored. Why? Well, because we have two tables that name things very differently. As an example:

table 1 in our case is Raiser's Edge which labels its column that has our membership's first names in it as:
CnAdrSal_Salutation
Katie
Jennifer

meanwhile, table 2 NEON labels it's column for first names as:
First Name
Katie
Jennifer

So to move this data we have to tell NEON to "map" the column entitled "CnAdrSal_Salutation" to send its information to Neon's "First Name" column. Again, not necessarily difficult but as you can see Raiser's Edge is a bit more cryptic than NEON in its choices which actually is the epitomy of how both data management systems choose to conduct business in general.

Anyway, that process is in its final stages which means that we are one step closer to going live with all of our exciting upgrades in technology and the benefits that will offer our membership! We are all anticipating that by this time next month we here in the national office should be getting ready to begin staff training on how to use the new system which means that we are even closer to opening the new system, new opportunities and new benefits up to you.

More soon: here on the blog, in E-Notes and in the editorials of Overtones!
Katie

For everything there is a time...

Time-lines have become the structure of the national office in recent weeks. They provide the outline for implementing the New Initiatives set forth by the national board. The following time-line takes us through the next 11 months and will give you the framework of what we hope to accomplish in that time:

December 2010

• NEON system delivered, complete with customization and current member data
• National office staff trained
  
• National staff reviews data and customization and works with z2Sytems to adjust where necessary
• National office begins converting content of AGEHR website to reflect the new name - Handbell Musicians of America
  

January 2011

• Begin using NEON in-house for all member database functions
  
• Begin integrating NEON with AGEHR website and make basic features available to membership
• Begin incorporating our new name into event marketing and branding
• National Seminar registration opens on-line through NEON

March/April 2011

• Begin incorporating new name into E-newsletters and e-mail messaging
• More NEON features become available on-line
• Continue transitioning website
  

Spring/Summer 2011

• As supplies of printed matter (envelopes, stationery, brochures, etc.) run-out, new orders will be placed with new branding
• All NEON features live and available to members and staff
• Continue transitioning website to new brand
  
• Areas begin incorporating new name in events, newsletters and other communications
  

September 2011

• September/October issue of Overtones will incorporate new brand
• Finalize transition of website to new brand
  

October 2011

• Rebranding complete
• New website address will be www.handbellmusicians.org

Many of these changes are just around the corner. Start watching the website and other information out of the national office for hints of the new name and logo. As we work our way through the process, more details will be added and others adjusted. As with all transition, we don't know all the challenges we'll face along the way, so must be prepared to adjust and adapt as necessary.

Input, Output. . .

I am excited to report that even now we are still receiving support for the New Initiatives Campaign (NIC). People are still sending in their “I’m On Board” and “NIC Pledge” forms. We have even begun to process Matching Funds from corporations who support their employees’ generosity. It is really quite humbling to experience this level of support from so many people in our community at so many different levels.


So, now that it is our new fiscal year and we can officially begin implementing our three pronged plan. The first step is the administrative aspects of preparing to move all of our data from one system to the next. I have personally been working with Anne Potter of Extreme Consulting who is helping us to organize our data for this transfer. She and I have been going through all of the data field by field working to determine what information we use, what information we need and how best to map that data to NEON’s standard and custom fields.


We are also working to clean up the data in the database. We want the data to be as pristine as possible by eliminating duplicates or errors that have developed over the years. This means that we are going through and comparing member records and have had a volunteer working on things like standardizing how we input our data. For example, we have now standardized the way we enter the names of churches. This may sound silly but imagine that you work at Saint Peter’s United Methodist Church and have had a membership with AGEHR for many, many years, but you happen to have lost your member number. You call our office and we can’t find your record. Why? Because in our record your church is listed as St. Peters UMC and if you have ever worked with data bases you know we will never find Saint if we are searching for St with a period. Also is it UMC or United Methodist Church? Is there an apostrophe in Peter’s or not when it was entered? By taking the time now to set this standardization up, we are creating ways to improve our data management efficiency which will in the long run benefit you and your membership because we, in the national office, will be set up for success when providing you with the support and service that you need and deserve.


As of right now, we are still on target for our projected delivery date of a complete upgrade of our technology which has been listed as 6/2011. Knock wood, but the administrative process seems to be running smoothly so far. Of course we expect some bumps and kinks to work out as we go, but as this new technology begins to expand your abilities to manage your membership and membership benefits better via the web site, I know our end results will be well worth the efforts.

Responding to your questions...

As staff and board members have shared details about the New Initiatives plan with other AGEHR members, several questions and suggestions have come up. As we post on the blog, we will try to address as many of these as we can.

In today's post, I will respond to several who have asked for more information and testimonials about the company providing part of our new technology, Z2Systems and the NEON database. For a brief history of the company and their philosophy in working with the non-profit sector, see this page on their website - http://www.z2systems.com/en-US/aboutus.html. To me, the most compelling statement on this page is the process they used to create the first version of NEON - working directly with non-profit clients and understanding that each has slightly different needs. As a result, they have created a highly adaptable, user-friendly system at a price that is within the reach of smaller non-profits like AGEHR.

Z2Systems maintains a 95% retention rate with their client base. One interesting tidbit - their VP of sales used to be a client. He was so impressed with the system he wanted to help get the word out to other non-profits. Here are a few testimonials from other customers:

"NEON is the single best investment our organization has made in technology. Any charity that is considering improving how it interfaces with donors and other constituents would do well to consider NEON. I will gladly speak personally with anyone who wants information from a highly satisfied user." - Bill Bro, CEO, Kidney Cancer Association, www.kidneycancer.org

"Thanks for all of your hard work! Your quick responsiveness, attention to detail, and genuine caring about our needs and concerns are a testament to the quality of the people at Z2. It's a pleasure doing business with you." - Ed Mally, Treasurer, Lotus Outreach. www.lotusoutreach.org.

"Again, you guys are rock stars! Seriously, how is everyone not using the system?" - Kate Avallone, Development Assistant, Paragon Theatre Company, www.paragontheatre.com.

"Of all the databases we compared, NEON was far and away the most user-friendly. Everyone who has worked on it agrees that the learning curve is much shorter than any other member/donor database they have worked on before." - The Rev. Fletcher Harper, Executive Director, Green Faith, Interfaith Partners for the Environment, www.greenfaith.org.

"Z2Systems is an amazing company. I have been working with them for about 2 1/2 years now and have never met a company with better service higher integrity!" - Lucy Accardo, Webmaster, Queens Falcons, www.queensfalcons.net

Personally, I will add that I have been exploring NEON's capabilities, through a robust demo of the system, and communicating with their staff for the past several months. They are professional, responsive, and have an excellent grasp of the unique challenges facing organizations like AGEHR. The system is easy to use and integrates seamlessly with the AGEHR website. Once implementation is complete, you will all get to see the great things I've been experiencing with NEON.

21 Century here we come!

"I applied for membership online using my credit card on Sunday. I was
hoping to get on-line into the members only section of the website. When can I expect to receive access???"

All too often, I come into the office on Monday morning and find an email or voicemail like the one above. I can hear the frustration and completely understand. However, until we are able to manually process their membership in the office, this new member is out of luck. Has this happened to you? Nice way to treat new members, huh. {sigh}

This issue is not limited to new members. If your membership expires even by a few hours and you renew your membership online, you are still stuck until the staff gets into the office and has time to process your membership. What about this, has it happened to you? If not can you imagine the frustration? Again, nice way to treat our loyal members, huh! :<(

Needless to say, this is NOT how we in the office want to treat our members. In fact we pride ourselves on serving our community of handbell and handchime ringers to the best of our abilities. Unfortunately, that means that our best is all too often weighed down by the albatross of our current technology.

So, I am VERY excited about the new Neon member management system. By combining all of our records down into one singular data management system, we are able to join the 21st century and finally meet the basic expectation that if you can take my money right now I should have access right now and the ability to begin enjoying my member benefits right now!

The coolest part is that this is only one small part of all the exciting new opportunities opening up to us via the Neon system because of your generosity via the New Initiatives Campaign. What part of the New Initiatives Campaign are you excited about and why??

New Technology for the Future

The national office has been working hard all summer to develop implementation plans for the New Initiatives announced at Pinnacle in Nashville. The first to launch is the comprehensive technology update that will be complete by June 2011. Over the next few months, J.R. (publications director), Katie (director of membership), and I will be posting more information about what the technology update will entail.

Today, I will share the rationale and process we used in selecting the new database management system that is once piece of this initiative.

The implementation of this system will be a major step to resolving one of the biggest challenges facing the national office on a daily basis. It will also solve the frustrations many of you experience every time you navigate to the AGEHR website and try to login into the member’s only section or make a purchase in our on-line store.

At this time, the national office maintains multiple databases for our daily operations. These include a primary membership database that is used in the office every day to maintain all our membership records and related membership functions. Because of the way this was set-up when initially implemented (before any of the current staff were in the national office), this database cannot communicate directly with our website. As a result, we must operate a separate set of database tables to manage website functions like member’s-only access, the on-line store, and the forums. To make matters more complicated, none of these tables communicate with each other. Yet another service manages our e-newsletters and e-mail blasts. This is why you have separate log-in credentials for each of these functions, and why changes you make to your account in one place don’t immediately get updated to other places.

From the staff side, when a member makes a change to their account, we must go to each of these separate services to manually update the record. You can imagine the amount of time this takes away from other tasks we could and should be doing to serve our membership. We have worked with consultants and programmers to develop a variety of stop-gap resolutions to meet this challenge using the existing technologies available to us, but all have just been weak band-aids and not true solutions. Additionally, our current technology is a barrier to anything new we want to offer our members or potential members.

A real solution to these challenges has been identified and implementation is under way. To make the choice, we worked with a well-respected consultant in Centerville, Ohio (home of the national office). With the consultant’s help, we identified a list of features we must have to achieve our goals. We then divided them into must-haves, should-haves and wish-we-hads. With this information in hand, the consultant did a comprehensive search of available database solutions and returned to us with a detailed list of nearly 20 options along with their recommendations and opinions about each. That list was narrowed to three top choices which were evaluated in more detail by the staff through web demos and long phone conversations with sales representatives and programmers.

The solution we selected is called NEON – Non-profit Enterprise On-line Network. The creators of NEON were software developers in the for-profit sector that saw many small non-profits struggling like we are with finding an all-in-one software solution to manage the growing demands of an increasingly on-line society. So they created NEON which takes technologies used successfully in for-profit business models and adapts them for non-profit needs.

NEON is loaded with features that will make the national office staff more efficient, and your on-line member interaction more rewarding and robust. I'll be providing much more detail about these features in upcoming posts.

Until then - post your questions, comments, and ideas about what I've shared today or about any of the New Initiatives.

We are so excited about the overwhelming support and great feedback we've received for this plan and the announcements made at Pinnacle this week. As part of this announcement, those attending Pinnacle were asked to show their support by making a contribution to our capital campaign supporting the project.

President John Pfeiffer started the fundraising effort by offering a $10,000 personal contribution and Presidential Challenge to event attendees to collectively match it. Pinnacle participants came through in a big way and pledged over $92,000 in three days. Add this to pre-event pledges collected by the National Board and that brings the total raised to $138,395!

The complete Honor Roll of those who have invested in the future of The Guild will be posted soon.

Check back often for updates to the list and to learn more about the project and our progress in acheiving these new goals.

Handbell Musicians of America

The wait is over and the proposed new look for the organization has been revealed. AGEHR will be the Handbell Musicians of America.

A big part of the new direction being undertaken by the Guild is to recognize ourselves as musicians to be taken seriously by the music world at large. The fabulous concerts at this year’s Pinnacle have proven that we hold a solid place as musicians to be respected. And the name of the organization will reflect that attitude.

More information about the exciting new future for our art and our organization will appear on these pages as the news evolves.

Extra! Extra!

This just in from Pinnacle 2010: Some new and exciting changes are on the horizon for our organization and the art of handbell ringing.

At lunch on Day Two of Pinnacle 2010 in Music City, Nashville, Tennessee, AGEHR president John Pfeiffer announced the beginnings of some major changes which will serve to transform the face of the organization and become the catalyst for handbell musicians to build a lifetime of ringing.

In his keynote address at seminar last year, John indicated the need for the organization to move in a bold, new direction if it is to survive. Since then the board has been working on a plan to achieve that move. He said that the Guild will invest a good deal of time and money into the future of the organization by concentrating on three areas. The board has embarked on a capital campaign which has already raised more than $40,000.

First will be a complete overhaul of technology, which will bring handbell musicians and directors together like never before, truly recognizing ourselves as the voice of the art.

Second will be a restructuring of the organization’s membership and the introduction of faith based, educational, and community emphases from which members can choose to get the content necessary to fill their needs.

Third is a major rebranding effort designed to go along with the direction our organization and art form need to take in order to take its rightful place in the music world. The rebranding, however, he left as a cliff-hanger, and he promises to tell us more at the capital campaign reception tonight, Tuesday, July 20, at 7:15 in the Nashville Ballroom Salon E of the Marriott before the Vivace concert.

There are still tickets left to attend the reception. Find a board member to get one!

What's This...?

AGEHR has some exciting announcements about the future coming very soon. Board president, John Pfeiffer will be sharing details with the attendees at Pinnacle 2010 in Nashville next week (July 18-21). Watch this site for the details of that announcement. Updates will be posted Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during the event.

Visit here to see the news and tell us what you think.