The new Hills & Districts Chamber of Commerce website is now live!
Our new website comes with a load of new functionality and features to make it easier for our members to connect, build relationships and to attend our events.
Here is a newly recorded video walkthrough, going through many of the features of the site. Grab a coffee and settle in for the next 25 minutes as you explore the site.
Here is a summary of just some of the changes you will see with our new website.
Price & Fee Changes
- Members can now pay by the month or annually for their memberships. Annual membership rates are unchanged. Monthly rates: Sole $6 per month, Businesses 2-25 $8 per month, Corporate 26+ $22 per month.
- Renewal notifications will be sent out 28 days before the renewals are due for annual subscriptions, as well as 7 days prior for all subscriptions. You can renew at any time, as the renewal starts from your renewal date and not the day you pay. For most Chamber members that is the 1st
- Financial members get a 20% discount on all breakfasts/events with breakfast prices automatically adjusted for logged in members — the rate for breakfasts for non-members $35 – Member rate $28.
- Members from other chambers attending a breakfast get the discounted member rate (they need to specify their Chamber details to access that rate).
- Student tickets are now available for all events. If tickets are bought by a non-member the rate is $22 and by a member $17.60
Logins
- Every member must log in as part of buying tickets to events. In the past, we didn’t have a login requirement, which meant Leonard had to match 20+ payments with members each month manually. Forcing a login to purchase means less work for the secretary, and also allows us to offer discounted rates to members to attend events.
- Passwords have been strengthened. When you first log in, you will be asked for a strong password. We believe in modelling effective IT business practices to assist with our site security, which is why we require all members to use strong passwords. Our IT members in the Chamber will be able to assist you set up password programs such as LastPass or 1Password if you don’t already use them in your business to help you manage your passwords.
Payment Options
- You can now pay for breakfasts via PayPal & Stripe as well as bank transfer.
- At this stage, membership subscriptions are either via bank transfer or Stripe only as PayPal is currently buggy with recurring subscriptions. This will be addressed in phase 2 of the project.
- Automatic PDF tax invoices are emailed out when purchasing.
- We no longer also send out receipts.
Memberships
- Members can self-upgrade/downgrade their membership levels themselves as their employee numbers grow/shrink.
- Team memberships: Each business/corporate membership can now have two people listed as members of the Chamber to receive news and attend meetings. The team owner can add/remove team members themselves at any time through their dashboard.
- Our membership list is now automatically synced to MailChimp to ensure member email addresses are always current. In the past, this was a manual process each month.
- Elected government officials all now come under the business 2-25 members category to ensure equity of membership.
Directory
- We now have a fully searchable directory. You can search by a person’s first or last name, business name or type of business, or simply click the quick links to find businesses in a particular type.
- New members are prompted with content fields to help create their directory listing as part of the checkout process. These fields only appear when people purchase membership products and not during normal event ticket purchases. The secretary then creates a new directory listing for our new members from that information.
- Members can edit their directory listings through their dashboard. When you’re editing your listing, it is sent through to an admin to review and approve the edits, and your listing won’t be visible until the edits are approved.
- Directory listings allow for extended information about your business including special offers visible to members only, video links to YouTube or Vimeo and more social media links.
- Members can pay for additional directory listings if they want different text in different categories, or they have two separate businesses. This is done as an annual subscription that you can buy from the shop page.
Event Bookings
- There is a now a mandatory field to fill in attendee name, and optional dietary requirements field for all event bookings. This means you no longer have to email Leonard with guest details for each event.
- You can log in at any time before an event, and change/add attendee name and dietary requirements. This should help with organising the Big Breakfast when people buy tables and then add guest names closer to the event.
- We can export attendees into CSV files to allow for planning table allocations and name badges.
- All event venues now include address and map details on the listing to help people find the location.
- Historical events are no longer automatically deleted – they remain on our system and can be searched, so we keep a record of our history.
- RSVPs to free events are now handled through the site. We will be adjusting this in the coming weeks to enforce logins or registration on our site before people can RSVP.
- Tickets are now issued to events. We will be using QR code scan of the tickets at events so bring your ticket or have your email confirmation on your smartphone. We will also have check-ins through iPad/laptop for people who forget their tickets or have lost their emails.
Committees
- Each committee now has its page on the website.
- Committee members can now upload items for the blog which will be reviewed and approved by the Secretary. Each committee has its own blog category to enable easy viewing of content.
What you need to do now
- The first thing to do is click the button at the very top right hand of the website that says “Login”.
- If you haven’t set a password in the past few days, then click the Lost Your Password link where you will be able to reset your password to the site.
Members who are part of the Hills Chamber of Commerce Members Facebook group saw some previews videos of parts of the new website while it was under development, and were some of the first to test out new features and provide feedback. Thank you! If you haven’t joined our group, pop over and do so to stay in touch with news, events and updates.
This has been a major project, with thousands of moving parts and this summary only scratches the surface. Given the complexity, we are sure there will be the odd glitch or problem. Simply drop Leonard an email at secretary@hillschamber.org.au, and we will fix any bugs you spot.
A huge thank you to Leonard and Ingrid Moyle from Heart Harmony Communications who have been working on this project full time for many months. It is a website to be proud of.
