TRANSITIONS

In the beginning, there was the NEW ENGLAND GUILD OF ENGLISH HANDBELL RINGERS. In 1954, this group transitioned into The American Guild of English Handbell Ringers extending its outreach to a whole new audience across the US. Now in 2011, our community is once again positioning for a name change to extend our outreach and accessibility. On October 1st of 2011, we will be known as the Handbell Musicians of America or the Guild for short. As you know, one of the reasons that this name was chosen was because it quickly identifies who we are and what we do, to a whole new generation of current and future ringers and enthusiastic audiences. In preparation for this change, we have already begun the transitional branding process. Transitional branding process, now there is a mouthful. But all that means is that you should have already begun to notice a mixing of our identities. For example the 2011 National Seminar is officially titled:

HANDBELL MUSICIANS OF AMERICA NATIONAL SEMINAR:

AN AGEHR EVENT.

As we move ever closer to the October 1st transition you will see more and more references to our community that interweave our names, you will see the new logo more and more often, and you will hear the national office and your Area Leaders asking you to help us spread the word throughout our community to help us create a buzz. To help with the transition there are a few things that you can do to help. First, keep your eyes peeled for these transitional opportunities in your part of our handbell community. Talk to people not about the HMA because what is THAT?? Talk about the Handbell Musicians of America or the Guild to shorten it up. While the Guild does not specifically reference handbells it does give more information than a cold un-descriptive, acronym. Second, if you are following us on FACEBOOK and see a status update please repost it to your facebook page. If you are following us on TWITTER, then RETWEET our posts. If you are a director or ringer who knows other ringers and directors who are not following us on facebook or RECEIVING OUR E-MAILS encourage them to do so, in fact help them subscribe themselves or do it for them (with their permission). Generally, I encourage you to be proactive in helping us to make sure everyone in our handbell and handchime community is aware that our name is changing. The fact is that our membership represents approximately 125,000 ringers and we are counting on you to make sure that they know who we are and where we are going!

Help us spread the word!

AGEHR Website Building on-line Community!

Whether you are a handbell director, ringer, composer or just an enthusiast the AGEHR community is where you want to be!

This vibrant and active community has a long tradition of excellence that is reaching new heights via our website because of the huge success of the New Initiatives Campaign as our membership continues to support us with ideas, volunteer hours and financial support. As you are aware from reading this blog, our journal Overtones and e-newsletters ( subscribe / view back issues) the first stages of developing our on-line community have been launched with the help of our new database management system, NEON. From your log in you can now shop in the store, register for events, post to the forums and manage your account information. Perhaps the most exciting aspect is the idea of getting in at the ground floor as our website opportunities begin to explode over the next few years!

In just the last month, we have already had over 10% of our membership that have signed on to the AGEHR website and created their user name and password. (Hopefully, if you are reading this then this 10% includes you! If not, please take a moment to follow the link below.)

But while 10% in a month is GREAT, we would really like to get the word out and encourage more members and non-members alike to get involved and join in the fun! So that is where YOU come in. We need you to help us spread the word. Whether you are at rehearsal, at a concert, participating in a ringing event or using a social media application, please help us to encourage people to login and become active participants in our on-line community.

So what can you do?? Well. . .

• Right now you could click one of the social media sharing icons at the bottom of this post.
  
  
  
• You could take your iphone/ipad/laptop to rehearsal this week and get your whole group set up. (Non-members can have accounts for free and get our emails for free!)
  
  
  
• You could volunteer to man a kiosk at your next ringing event where you take names and emails via a wireless system or even with an old fashioned pen and paper.
  
  
  
• You could add reminders with links at the bottom of your email signature.

The fact is this is our community and there is such a wide variety of things each of us can do to help spread the word about all the exciting things happening in our world!

Remember:

Members
already have accounts & Just need to

create user names and passwords.

Non-members can create accounts

to join our on-line community!

See you next month. . . with double the numbers????? ;>)

New Initiatives Stage 1 Launches

IF YOU ARE A MEMBER
YOU ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT!

Set-up Login Name & Password HERE

There are even Video Tutorials Available HERE

As you may have heard in the January E-Notes, NEON, our new membership management technology is here! If you have had a membership record between January 1, 2006 and now, then you already have an account in our record. As long as that record has a current email address in it then you can quickly and easily set up your Login Name and Password to visit the new AGEHR online membership management pages using the Forgot Password? Get Help link! If your email needs to be updated in the national office please shoot us an email or call us between 9-5EST at 1.800.878.5459.

This initial release of the new technology, has some exciting new features available for you to take advantage of ranging from registering for NATIONAL SEMINAR online to actually getting to create your own unique Login Name and Password that is good across the board, no matter if you are logging into view Overtones online, visiting our forums or shopping in our web store to purchase the 2011 Priority Music Club.

To help in the introduction of these new opportunities we have created some quick Video Tutorials to serve as our welcome to the neighborhood tour. Even if you are sure that you can figure it out, I fully recommend that you take this opportunity to watch them due to the AMAZING voice over talent that really adds to the entertainment value of these videos. Rumors have it that there is already Academy and Grammy Award buzz surrounding these outstanding performances. If only it wasn’t an anonymous performance. . . ;>)

So, if you haven’t already, take a moment now to login to explore the blossoming fruits of the New Initiatives Campaign that is being made possible by the on-going generosity of our members like YOU!

Regards,
Katie

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!

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

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.

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??