TIP:  Skim quickly through this article, until you get to the LAST PARAGRAPH.  Read it carefully.

On the first of each month we always get a nice email from out Chapter President saying something like: 

Our newsletter in now on our website at:

WWW.ACA-SCC.COM

                Clicking on this link will take you directly to our Chapter web site.  From there you can click to the Presidents monthly letter, or the board and committee reports, and all of its current information.

Or you can just browse around and get all sorts of information about the Chapter and its activities.

                You can go into the members only section to see pictures and information about all your fellow members of the South Central Chapter.  Of course this is a restricted portion of the website available only to members of the Chapter.   You need a User Name and Password  to enter.  If you don’t know your U/N & Password, send me an email and it will be sent back to you.

                But how often do you go to the  American Coach Association web site?

WWW.MYAMERICANCOACH.COM

          This is a very interesting web site.   You can find all sorts of information about the association.  Just looking at the front page you will find numerous articles of current interest.  Notice the bar across the top that reads:   Our Community,   Officers & Chairs,   Rallies,   Chapter News,   Membership Tasks,  For Sale, and   Scholarship Foundation.   You can point to (hover over) each subject and a drop down menu will appear for you to select any of numerous choices pertaining to the topic.  Our Community is one of my favorites as it has lots of information, past & present, about our club. 

                But  the  one  I  am  writing  about is  Membership Tasks.  The  drop  down  there  includes:    Log On – Update Profile, Renew Membership (with CC),  Renew Membership (Snail mail),

New Member – Join, and   Register for Memphis. 

                Again the one we are following here is Log On-Update Profile, so click on that.  As everything in this section is restricted to ACA members only, you must now log on.  The screen that comes up will ask 2 questions:  USER NAME, and PASSWORD.    

If you don’t know your User Name, send me, or your Membership Chair,  an email, and it will be sent to you.  If you are a new member, or have forgotten your Password, click on Forgot Password?.    ACA will email your password to your email address in their records.  No One Else.   Hope yours is up to date!

Then, after logging on, please go to Manage Password and change your password to something more secure and personal.    

                After properly logging in, you will get a screen that shows your personal information.  But before looking at that, look across the top of the screen.  Printed  in  black is  a  row  with  the  following  topics:   Back to Website,  My Profile,  Membership Renewal,   By Laws & Docs,  Board reports, and  Financials.  They are placed here in the restricted part of the site, so as to be available to only current ACA Members.   The first 3 are self explanatory, but the last 3 are very interesting.  Some of it is fun reading, some is tough reading, but it is ALL GOOD READING.   Everyone should take the time to read these and be a more informed member.   Maybe also stop a few rumors, or answer a happy hour question!!

                Back to My Profile.  It consists of 3 boxes.  The top right box will be your account information.  The bottom right box is “User Account”.  If you want to change any of this information, type over the existing to change, then click on UPDATE.   To change your password, click on Manage Password, enter the old and new passwords, and click on Change Password.   To view and/or change your other data, click on Manage Profile to bring up all that data.  Change whatever is necessary, then click on Update in lower left corner.  Another great thing about this roster is that it is updated immediately upon receipt.  In other words, if you correct your information, (address, phone #’s email, etc.) the roster is corrected when you click on UPDATE.  Nothing else is required.  Try it! 

                And lastly, the top left box is for viewing the complete ACA roster, or any Chapter roster you may want.   To start, click on Membership Report.   This brings up a screen with 2 questions.  The report (list) you view can be arranged (sorted) by either:  alphabetically by last name, or:  numerically by ACA#.   Click on that box and choose whichever you want.   The second choice is whether you want the complete ACA roster, or just a particular Chapter.  Click on that box and choose.   Then click on Run Report .   If your computer stops, or gives you some sort of error message, it may be your pop-up blocker.  This report is in the form of a pop-up, so you must either turn off your pop-up blocker, or tell it to allow pop-ups from:   myamericancoach.com .   Holding CTRL and clicking on the link may also work.

                After clicking on Run Report,  patience is a virtue.  If you have a slow computer, like mine, you are probably accustomed to waiting for downloads.  The ACA roster presently has about 1,300 listings, but each listing takes 4 lines.  So you are actually downloading 5,200 lines of information.  Could take a couple minutes. 

                Once the list is on the screen, you can view it there, or save to your computer, using Excel.  To save, right click on the screen, and click on Export to Microsoft Excel.   On my computer, this new file does not immediately show on the screen.  It is minimized, and a box at the bottom of your screen will announce that a Microsoft Excel file is open.  Click on that box.  After the new file opens in Excel, you can name & save to wherever you want on your hard drive.   

                At present you still cannot work with this file to sort or arrange any data.  There are 2 lines of data and 2 blank lines for every entry, so sorting is impossible.  But the FIND feature works fine.   Go to the upper right and click on FIND, type in what you are looking for (Name, City, State or whatever), and the computer will find it instantly.  Of course just having the roster available on your hard drive is very convenient.

                Oh, and one more thing.  When you are finished with the on-line web site, and viewing your personal information, don’t forget to go back to My Profile, and click on Logout.  Some computers get a little fussy if you close before logging out. 

                While thinking about computer adjustments, think also about your spam filter/blocker.    As ACA sometimes sends important notices via email, you should be in the habit of checking your spam directory on occasion, and adding  administration@myamericancoach.com  to your list of approved senders, if necessary.

                If all else fails, and nothing seems to work, try to write down what happened and send me an email.  If I can’t help, I’ll send it to my 14 year old grandson.  He is a whiz at this stuff.  He is in the 9^th grade and has his own laptop to carry for all his school work.  At that age I was still trying to figure out how to work a mechanical pencil.      Even in college, Hi-Tech for me was a slide rule!!

                Dave Parsons

                davidtish@aol.com

PS:   There is a lot of stuff above.  My suggestion is to print out this complete article, then take a small bite at a time.  Follow through a couple paragraphs carefully, then put it away.  Next time start over, and get through a couple more paragraphs.  Pretty soon you’ll be zipping in and out of the sites whenever you need any information.  But if you get stuck anywhere, don’t be bashful.  Send me an email describing your problem, and we’ll work it out.  Between Grandson, and Doug Thompson, The Web Guy for ACA, we’ll find out what is happening.