Clubs and associations have the option of enabling an Add me to your Mailing List prompt on the public side of their websites. Clicking this link displays the following screen:

Users enter their basic contact information and how they heard about your club or association. They may optionally self-select themselves into one or more mailing list categories that you have defined and flagged to be visible. When they click Save, their information is added to the non-member database and they are assigned to the categories they have checked.

If your club or association has a presence on social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can configure links to these pages. These links will appear on a special panel towards the top of your website:

In the above example, the first link is to the club’s Facebook page.

You can also enable a Sharing link (the second one above) to allow members and non-members to share interesting website content on their personal social networking pages or feeds. Clicking this link displays a screen similar to the following:

This panel allows members to share content on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or LinkedIn. It will also show the count of how many times the page has already been shared.

Clicking the orange “+” sign displays additional links, including a More… option that leads to almost 300 other services:

Every page also includes a login panel. In the example above, this is a small rectangle on the left side, under the page header and above the menu. Other templates may have it in different positions and with different appearances (for example, as a narrow strip across the top of the page, above the page header.)

For clubs and associations using the new look and feel tools (added in version 6.0), the login panel will look like this:

• Site visitors and members who have not yet logged in will see the phrase Member Login. Clicking this link brings up the login page, allowing members to log into the site and view content reserved for members only.
• Members who have logged in will see their name and a down-pointing arrow. Hovering over the name and arrow displays the drop-down menu shown above, with links to the Profile screen, the member’s Bio screen, a link to login as a different user, and a Logout link.
• Members who log in and whose membership is up for renewal will see the red icon shown above on the left. This is a shortcut to the renewal page, allowing members to renew their memberships with a couple of mouse clicks. A Renew link will also appear in the drop-down menu.
• If your club has enabled Trial memberships, trial members will see the same link to upgrade their memberships.
• Members who have pending payments will see the second red icon shown above ($ symbol.) This is a shortcut to the Payments screen, allowing members to pay online or print an invoice to mail a check. A Payment Due link will also appear in the drop-down menu.

• Site visitors and members who have not yet logged in will see the phrase Member Login. Clicking this link brings up the login page, allowing members to log into the site and view content reserved for members only.
• Members who have logged in will see a “Welcome, <first name>” message. The Login link is replaced by two links: one to Logout and the other to jump to the member’s personal Profile page.
• Members who log in and whose membership is up for renewal will see a red Renew Now link. This is a shortcut to the renewal page, allowing members to renew their memberships with a couple of mouse clicks.
• Members who have pending transactions will see a blue Payment Due link. This is a shortcut to the Payments screen, allowing members to complete any pending payments.
• If your club has enabled Trial memberships, trial members will see an Upgrade Membership link.
• Your club or association may have enabled a My Directory Listing option. Clicking this link takes you to your bio page in the Membership Directory. From this page, you can edit the various elements of your directory entry, including your contact information, bio and answers to additional member data.

Every page within an organization’s web site has a standard header. This header usually runs the full width of the page (although this is not required.) It can be any height although it is usually advisable to keep the header no more than 125-130 pixels in height so that it doesn’t dominate the page. ClubExpress includes a custom designer to build this header.

Every page includes a series of links to jump to other portions of your organization’s web site. This is the navigation menu and it will generally be in one of two positions: vertically oriented along the left side of the screen; or horizontally oriented along the top of the screen. ClubExpress supports different menus for public users and members after they have logged in, and even different menus based on your member type. ClubExpress also supports sub-menus; an arrow will indicate that there are additional choices below that item.

The main section of the website is the content panel. This is where pages and all custom content are displayed. It may contain text, images, tables, and other standard website elements.

Along the top edge of the content panel is a crumb trail.1 The crumb trail is named after the story of Hansel and Gretel, who left a trail of breadcrumbs into the forest to help them return after being abandoned by their wicked stepmother. This trail lists the logical path of pages from the home page to the current page. (Note that this may not be the actual path that a user has followed, since the various modules within ClubExpress are closely coupled to each other.) Each entry on the crumb trail except for the last one (representing the current page) is a link, allowing you to backtrack to an earlier page.

Under the crumb trail but above the module heading is a message area. In most instances, this area will be blank. Error messages appear in red while status and general informational messages appear in blue (or a similar “non-cautionary” color based on the current template, theme and style sheet.)

Floating on the right side of the website is the Page Tools Widget

This widget appears on every page and may have between four and six icons. The arrow only will initially be visible. Hovering over it slides the full panel out and moving away slides it back in again.

Users with admin rights over a page or function may see a “pencil” icon at the end of the list, allowing them to jump to the Admin side of the function or to edit the content of the page.

With the example on the right, the widget will retain its position for up to 7 days if you drag it off to the side of the browser window. Note however that this is done via a browser cookie so the saved position may be different on the public side of the website vs. after you have logged in as a member (because the domain names are different.) Just move it a second time and you’ll be all set.

Some ClubExpress templates include additional areas which your club or association is using to list sponsors or upcoming events or other content which should appear on every page.

Every page also includes a standard footer with the following elements:

• A link to the Home page
• A link to the Contact Us module
• A link to the standard Terms of Use for the web site (which appears in a popup window.) When a club or association signs up for ClubExpress, it agrees on behalf of its members to abide by these terms of use.
• A link to the standard Privacy policy in effect for this site (which also appears in a popup window.) When a club or association signs up for ClubExpress, it agrees on behalf of its members to abide by this privacy policy.
• A small notice from ClubExpress. This is also a link that brings up the clubexpress.com web site in a separate window.

For disabled users who access the website via a screen reader, ClubExpress includes a Skip Navigation link at the top of the page, to jump immediately to the page content. This link is normally invisible to users without a screen reader.

ClubExpress provides support for international members of US-based clubs.

• Dates will be shown in the local format. The US uses mm/dd/yyyy but other countries use dd/mm/yyyy or yyyy.mm.dd.
• Numbers will be shown in the local format. The US and other countries use a comma for the thousands separator and a period for the decimal separator but some countries, especially in Europe, reverse these.

ClubExpress also provides extensive support for clubs and associations outside the United States.

• Payments will be made in your local currency, using both credit cards and PayPal. Look for the currency symbol to confirm this. For example, in Australia, you could use “$AUS”, “AUS$”, or “AUD”.
• Local time zone support ensures that transactions, payments, event registrations, and other information will be shown at the correct local date and time.
• Units of measurement are shown in the metric system everywhere in the world except the US!