Review Your Club Files
While you're entering your new enrollments and re-enrollments, it's a really good time to do some clean-up on some of your files. This first post is about club files, but there will be more posted in the next couple of weeks.
Go to the File menu and Choose Club/Unit Codes. Look at the following things for each club:
Does this club still exist? If not, it's time to delete the record. If you get an error message about members in the club, you can find them in the Club Member Query and get rid of those memberships.
The integration codes--I believe that nearly every one should be marked as "mixed community" because so few communities any more are not integrated. Then look at Integrated Group--if there is one member of that club who is anything other than Non-Hispanic White, then that box should also be checked.
The primary leader contact--is this still correct information? Sometimes when leaders change, we might forget to change the club record.
Delivery mode--FFA groups are "not a youth group unit". So are any groups comprised entirely of adults. Clover Kids could be "after school club", or "special interest" or even possibly "school aged child care". Project clubs that actually meet (horse clubs, etc) could be either "community club" or "special interest" depending on how often and regularly they meet, and whether they have officers, a checking account, and/or other aspects that you would expect in a community club.
Date organized--if you have the information about this stored somewhere, but not in Blue Ribbon, you might want to consider putting it in here just for easy access. It's quicker to look it up in Blue Ribbon than to dig through filing cabinets!
Checkboxes--same thing as date organized. If you want to start tracking any of those, now is a great time to get the information entered into the program.
Many of the clean-up tasks will be very quick--especially after the first year that you go in and start organizing!!