Getting Started Checklist

Step 1: Select a Domain

Your domain serves as your district/club's digital identity. Consider picking a domain that is consistent with your club's name, is easy to remember (when typing into a browser or mobile device), and would look good on a business card or email signature.

You can search for available domains on this site: https://www.godaddy.com/domains

Big West Rotaract participates in a program that allows us to register domains for just the whole registry fee + ICANN fee (ie. at cost with no markup). This represents a significant savings over other registrars, who might offer a teaser rate in the first year but typically mark up the price significantly thereafter.

Top Level Domain (TLD)	Wholesale Registry Fee	ICANN Fee	Total Annual Cost to BWR
.org	$9.93	$0.18	$10.11
.com	$8.97	$0.18	$9.15
.net	$9.77	$0.18	$9.95

Examples of District Domains:

rotaract5160.org - District 5160 website (default is district number for easy identification)

rotaractla.org - District 5280 website (district covers most of Los Angeles County)

Examples of Club Domains:

calrotaract.org - Rotaract Club at the University of California, Berkeley in District 5160, domain uses the club's nickname for consistent branding & easy to remember URL

pacificbeachrotaract.org - Pacific Beach Rotaract Club website (District 5340) - a little bit longer, but still a good domain!

surrey.rotaract5050.org - rather than registering different domains for every club, District 5050 registered 1 domain (rotaract5050.org) and each club has a subdomain

Check out Website Directoryfor a full listing of all domains in use

BWR's preference is for the MDIO to register and renew domains on behalf of participating clubs & districts. This ensures all domains are registered at the lowest price available, are renewed timely, and DNS records can easily be accessed.

If your club already has a domain, it can be transferred over to BWR, or we can update the DNS records to enable Google Workspace.

Step 2: Pick a Web Hosting option

BWR offers a numerous options for club & district websites. Rotaractors interested in a complex, customized site can build themselves using Wordpress or another offering through Amazon Web Services. Clubs seeking a low-maintenance, template-based site are encouraged to use Google Sites. More info can be found on this page:

pageWebsite Hosting

If your club already has a website and is not interested in migrating to a BWR solution, you can skip this step and go directly to Step 3.

Step 3: Choose naming for Google Workspace Accounts

Do you want every member of the club to have an account, or just club leadership?

Clubs should evaluate the below approaches and decide what accounts they would like to set up:

Email accounts for positions

Each role on the club's board has its own Google Workspace account (example: [e-mail] or [e-mail]).

Individuals are given login credentials by their predecessor, then later share with their successor.

This approach emphasizes continuity for board positions, and presumes that Google Workspace use is primarily for club business and improving board efficiency. The approach prioritizes maintaining communications and files to be passed down from one year to the next, with each position-holder contributing new knowledge & information that accumulates for the benefit of future position-holders. It also ensures a consistent point of contact for partners & stakeholders (for example, Rotarians know they can always reach the current President by emailing their Google Workspace account).

The downside is that it may be a more disjointed experience for individual Rotaractors, who typically only serve in a position for a year (and inevitably jump between accounts). If board positions & titling changes from year to year, it will result in emails that are not actively maintained.

Example: Pacific Beach Rotaract (5340) has Google Workspace accounts for each of their board positions (link to contact page on their website).

Email accounts for individuals

Every Rotaractor is given their own Google Workspace account (example: [e-mail])

This approach emphasizes the journey of a Rotaractor as an individual that grows into new leadership positions each year and builds relationships with other Rotaractors as well as Rotarians. It enables a Rotaractor to maintain Rotaract-related communications and files separate from their personal Gmail and build a Rotaract identity to present oneself professionally. It ensures that Rotarians, Rotaractors, and other stakeholders have a consistent point of contact to reach the individual account holder, as the Google Workspace account stays with the individual regardless of what position they may be serving at a club, district, or MDIO level.

The downside is that it can be harder to ensure that position-related communications are consistently maintained and passed down to successors; this can partly be mitigated using Google Groups. There is also greater variability in user adoption, as some individuals will prefer to use their personal email (in such cases, Google Groups can be used for forwarding addresses instead of setting up accounts). The creation of assignment of individual accounts is also administratively more time-consuming.

Example: In District 5050, every Club leader has their own individual Google Workspace account. Certain roles (such as [e-mail]) are Google groups.

Hybrid Approach:

Some Clubs & Districts use a mix of the two approaches.

Example: Cal Rotaract (5160) has position-based emails for officer roles ([e-mail], [e-mail], etc). Rotaractors holding certain leadership positions are given an individual Google Workspace account, as their interaction with other clubs & with Rotarians may be more individualized and less position-specific. While this sometimes means juggling both a position & individual account at the same time, it also encourages involvement after their leadership term is over, and can be alias'd with district & BWR domains.

If your club has a domain through an external provider and does not want to transfer, refer to this article for more info:

pageConnecting External Domains

If your club already used Google Workspace and needs to migrate over to BWR following the retirement of the legacy free plan, refer to this article for more info:

pageLegacy Migrations

Recommended Optional Services:

Google Groups Setup

Many clubs & districts utilize Google Groups for email distribution lists (listservs). Groups make it easy to add & remove people, provide a sharable historical archive of prior communications, and integrate with other google services (for example, you can invite a google group to a calendar event or share a google doc with a google group instead of adding people individually).

Examples of common groups:

[e-mail] - email distribution list for all members (can be a practical alternative to mailchimp for easier list management)

[e-mail] - email distribution list for all Board members

1. Visit https://groups.google.com/ and create a new Google Group

2. Under "choose privacy settings", set "who can post" to "anyone on the web"

3. Add all individuals you would like to include

Example: UC San Diego (5340) uses this Google Group to share announcements to members, alumni, & prospective members.

Shared Drives

Shared Drives are special folders that you can use to store, search, and access files within a Club or District. Unlike folders created in your "My Drive", Shared Drives are not subject to storage limitations, allowing clubs & district to save unlimited content* (for example, Cal Rotaract has over 300 GB of photos & videos stored in a shared drive).

1. Visit https://drive.google.com/drive and click on "shared drives"

2. Click the "+ New" button. Give your drive a useful name.

3. Click "manage members" and add the google groups you created above.

What are shared drives? - Google Workspace Learning Center

*caveat: there is a limit of 600,000 files in a single Shared Drive

Public Google Calendar

1. Visit https://calendar.google.com/ and create a new calendar

2. Set it to public and share it with your other Google Workspace users

3. Add the calendar do your website