Hello all,

My club, Crow River Investment Club, is one many who have
chosen to use Bivio's club accounting program. And like
many others, we have learned how to take advantage of the
Files section and the message board available to each of us.

But our club has taken it one step further and set up an
actual homepage, making active use of all of Bivio's tools.
Did you know you can use the message board to email your
minutes out every month?? I can send at attachment (of our
minutes) to crowriver@bivio.com and it will send it to the
board as well as to every member registered in our club.

Did you know that you can set up separate folders in the
Communications|Files section for your education handouts,
your minutes, your SSGs, your stock reports, etc.? And did
you know that any registered member can upload those files
easily?? Our members and officers can upload their own
materials, taking the pressure off the webmaster (or
webmistress in my case!).

Every time you create a new folder or upload a new document,
you are given the choice of keeping that document private
(only seen by registered members, which is the default) or
making it public. These are really great tools, and I don't
think that many clubs are utilizing them!

Our club has created a webpage, which anyone with Front Page
Express can do. But it's not necessary to have a fancy
homepage in order to organize your club on this site.

Everything on our homepage is just a link to a file in the
Files section. That makes the homepage similar to your
desktop--with icons that are shortcuts to where the programs
are really stored! As you know, your desktop is really just
a convenience. You could simply use the File Manager to
accomplish the same thing! Bivio is the same way!

POINT BEING...(big breath here)...there are a lot of
creative people out there dreaming up ways to make full use
of this site. And I think it would be really helpful if we
started sharing those ideas here.

For example, I can help answer questions about using Front
Page to build and upload a club webpage. Or I can post to
this board whenever our club uploads a new stock report
(like Mentor Corp. from last night's meeting--already
there!) It's a great way for all of us to share stock
reports and educational materials from our meetings.

The Bivio owners are more than happy to provide a directory
of club websites, if there's enough interest.

We at Crow River consider ourselves a model club, and for
that reason, nearly everything we do is publically
accessible. We do have a Member's Only folder, but we don't
have much in there. You can access our site at
www.bivio.com/crowriver. Feel free to look around.

Also, I'm in another club that extensively uses the Files
section. Our homepage is on another server, but we have a
link to our Bivio Files. The Files section is located at
www.bivio.com/websavvy. You are welcome to take a peak
here, too.

If any of you have a homepage, or make use of the files and
message board sections, would you be willing to share your
address and/or ideas here??

I'm always interested in ideas for improving our webpage and
would welcome any constructive criticism. And I'm sure there
are others who want to do more here, if only they knew how!

Let's hear from you!

Lynn Ostrem, VP
Crow River Investment Club
www.bivio.com/crowriver
garbagecop@foxinternet.net

Lynn Ostrem writes:
> We at Crow River consider ourselves a model club, and for
> that reason, nearly everything we do is publically
> accessible. We do have a Member's Only folder, but we don't
> have much in there. You can access our site at
> www.bivio.com/crowriver. Feel free to look around.

I have to agree that http://www.bivio.com/crowriver is a valuable
resource. It's also a great example of how to build a club website.

One tip: You can upload your entire site in "one go" as a "zip" file.
An "unzip" link will appear next to the file after it is uploaded, and
you can unzip the contents. If you want, make the contents public
with the "make public" checkbox. It's an easy way to maintain
both public and private websites.

Cheers,
Rob