Don’t know how to describe this…

…and I wasn’t sure exactly what heading it should be under – so I chos e”miscellaneous”.

I am – excitedly – getting ready to take over a website that totally needs an overhaul. This is a freebie job (volunteer position) and I’m really excited to get to do this because 1) it *really* needs it, and 2) it’s going to let me dig into WordPress like I never have before. (I find that fun!)

I have tons of ideas for the site, but, of course, I have to get approval for them before I can implement. So I was wondering if you all could give me someWordpress-related information on their “specs” (they don’t really have “specs” – they just have “ideas” and then they have “stuff they need” KWIM?) so I can put up a good explanation on what I want to do.

Basically, it’s Newcomer’s Club website. (if you don’t know, Newcomer’s is an international organization – it’s members usually consist of many “locals” in an area, and they welcome people that move into the area for whatever reason. If you check your town for a local Newcomer’s chapter, I’ll bet you find one. :)) The club has a bidget of around $3000 every year to spend on stuff for the various expenses and events. It’s a non-profit organization, so they’re not trying to make money for anything except the events they have to get people together. As it turns out, they pump out a newsletter once a month, and the postage alone on that takes up almost the entire year’s budget.

This is their biggest issue – one I don’t think WordPress can really help with because they’ve tried to get people to switch to email versions (and print it out themselves) and very few people would switch. *But*, I believe WordPress could help make it easier on everyone to create said newsletter by running the site with categories, and each lead member of a position in the club can post their monthly updates in a blog-like format. Then when it comes time to make the newsletter, I think WordPress could put the month’s posts together and create a printable newsletter page (or pages)that could be copied and sent out. That way, the person that actually makes the newsletter won’t have all the “creation” issues she has now. Am I wrong in thinking this? If it *can* be done, could anyone point me to a plugin or something that would mak this happen?

They also like to post the newsletter on the internet – but it’s supposed to be for members only – yet it’s out there for anyone to see because the current web lady doesn’t really know what’s up (no offense ot her, honestly! She’s done the best she could for the last 6 years!)

I was also wondering if there was some kind of mailing list that could compile all addresses *and* email addresses of all members that would be easy to add and remove from – that way if any of the board members need to send out a “clubwide” mass emailing (which they do sometimes), they could have access and not have to C&P from word (like they do now)? And could such an email list be organized into groups, so if only certain members needed an email, it’s just a click away?

Also, every year they do this huge auction fundraiser thing – last year they decided to also make it an online auction. The way the website is set up, I cannot *imagine* how hard it was to get that going – manually doing *everything* on the back end. Would WordPress have sort of thing that would do this, eBay style? No money needs to change hands – it’s just the “bidding” part that would need to waork. Upload the images, describe the item and let the end user bid on it?

These are my *big* issues – and I think that WordPress can do them, it’s just a matter of finding out *how*. I’ve tried looking at the plugins – but I must be searching for the wrong thing, because I can’t find anything. If anyone can give me input on the above – or have any other ideas that would help convince them that they *need* to do this – I’d appreciate it 🙂