WordPress for Toastmasters*
A time saving tip for club leaders and meeting organizers is to confirm meeting participation using SMS text messages to their mobile phones, which tends to work better than email and is quicker (for both of you) than calling.
WordPress for Toastmasters can streamline this process by sending an email summary of an upcoming meeting agenda, with contact info for each of the participants, to your mobile phone. This video shows me viewing that information in the Gmail app on my Android phone and clicking on the mobile phone numbers of the members I want to contact. By pressing and holding for a moment, I get a popup menu that allows me to choose whether I want to call or use SMS (send a text message).
If you use the automated meeting role reminders feature, WordPress can be set to send an email reminder to each participant several hours or days before the time of the meeting. The Toastmaster of the Day also receives a complete summary of the agenda with contact information for each of the participants, plus a listing of all the members who have NOT been assigned a role and might be available.
On the website, you can view this same information by going to the Agenda menu for a specific meeting and choosing Agenda with Contacts.
This will give you a view of the agenda that includes contact information. If you want to use the SMS messaging trick, you can click “Email to me” and then view the message on your phone.
Note that for the SMS messaging trick to work, members must have filled in their mobile phone number in their member profile. You can also edit the phone numbers listed in their profiles. For U.S. phone numbers, +1 will be added at the beginning of the mobile number for the US dialing code (necessary for the automatic dialing to work). Numbers outside of the U.S. should be entered with the international dialing code (Example: +44-555-12-12-1234).
Members who will be out of town or unable to attend meetings for some period of time can set a temporary “Away Message” to be displayed next to their contact info as a signal that they do not want to receive calls or texts until after their return.
The “Away Message” shows up on the emailed version of the contact list and also on the member directory listing on the website (assuming your club includes that on its website).
