Case Studies: OnlineGroups.Net: Start free groups on a site of your own with no ads

Ski Club Committee Meets Online

Mount Olympus is a club ski field near Christchurch in New Zealand. The field has paid staff during the season but the management, planning and most maintanance and construction is done by volunteer club members and the committee.

The club committee meet regularly during the year but, in the lead-up to and during the season, most members work hard to make decisions and organise events. Until recently, this work involved a lot of email flying around. Much of the email had file attachments but no-one knew where the latest or the athoritative version of a file was. Thomas Stephens from the Olympus committee used OnlineGroups.Net to set up the Mt Olympus Online Groups site.

In March 2006, the club opened the WWSC Committee online group. The group is private. Non-members can see that the group exists and see the members list and the Charter, but can't read the posts. Thomas worked with OnlineGroups.Net to develop an appropriate membership criterion. The membership criterion can be objectively applied and ensures that everyone in the group knows who might join the group in future and read the post they make today. It also ensures that institutional knowledge can be passed from current committee members to their future successors.

The culture around Mount Olympus is pretty social. It has a large diaspora of people who feel involved with the club. To provide a place where these people can hang out and plan or reminisce about ski and snowboarding trips, Thomas started the My Olympus mega group. The mega group is open so anyone can read the messages or join and take part in the conversations.

Why was this site not around years ago?

Thomas Stephens, Site Administrator of Mount Olympus Online Groups writes…

Why was this site not around years ago? The benefit of being able to search any committee discussion, latest phone list, latest price list, from any location, with a secure library is now the way of the future. The ease of the email interface and online interface is great.

The people who don't like change don't realize that they have changed and are now working in a more efficient way. People who take to the online interface so they can focus on club issues rather than sorting though their emails, just whiz though the discussions with thoughtful answers and questions.

On the fun side, having an open group eg Mount Olympus Mega Group, means all friends, members and even newbies can get a feel of the club sprit, keep up to date with on going hot topics and keep in contact when they are a world away.

Thank you, OnlineGroups.Net.

Professional Association Builds Online Community

The NZ Association of Psychotherapists is an organisation with about 400 members who are distributed from one end on New Zealand to the other. The group is responsible for the professional standards and ethics of psychotherapists and for the induction of new people into the profession. We organise a conference somewhere in NZ once per year and produce newsletters locally and nationally and an annual professional Journal.

This takes a lot of discussion. NZAP uses the online groups mainly for its committees. There are currently about eight groups with overlapping membership. They have ongoing discussions are able to share files. By working in the one system rather than with a fragmented email only approach the organisation is developing a sense of place online, the beginnings of a virtual community for a real live community.

"This is a company that gets it."

Walter Logeman, Site Administrator of NZAP Online Groups writes…

I am happy to write a testimonial as I want OnlineGroups.Net to succeed beyond their dreams! I am on the Council of NZAP, the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists and responsible for the online communication in our organisation. We began using OnlineGroups.Net in October 2004. We now have a site with eight Groups and an announcement group. I am pleased we chose this path, here is why.

Clarity: We can see exactly who is on each committee, and who is responsible for deciding that. That was not so easy in the messy days of "Reply to all" emails.
File sharing: Using the Files area we can distribute files knowing they will remain available to those who need them. They are safe on the server even when people change computers etc.
Security: Confidential email & files can be deleted off individual computers and still the conversations go on using the web interface, behind the passwords.
Helpful Support: Simon and others have always been there when needed.
Simple: This is a company that "gets it". Conversations are possible via web AND OR email, it would seem a simple thing, but only OnlineGroups.Net can do that effectively, and they do it cheaply and simply. Our most non-tech savvy people can use it. Participants manage their form of access.
Philosophy: OnlineGroups.Net understand groups, not just technology. Each group has a charter & a coach and built in options for protocol and relationships. Belonging to the "Coachus" group helps to discuss group process & effective participation.
Advanced: I can see if there are new files or posts via RSS. That saves headaches when I monitor groups as their "participation coach". I can use tags & RSS and I like the look of the proposed features.

Horse Trek Guides Coordinate Activities Online

Kate Tapley of Kate Tapley Horse Treks Online Groups.

We have a team of some 10 on call staff running the horse treks I manage.

"The online group can get information out to others easily and efficiently."

Kate Tapley writes…

The online group we use enables us to pick up each others ideas, and deal with tasks and plans on the spot. No phone call, no waiting until we see each other. It also means we can have discussions, share enlightenments and thoughts with each other. Our minutes of staff meetings go on there, and we have fun with each other.

We often have occasion to plan for rides without a lot of notice and we find the online group can get information out to others easily and efficiently without having to actually have direct contact with each person on the list.

Since our online group has been running our information dissemination has been boosted, our connections with each other has increased, and we have an over view of what is happening from day to day.