Over the next few months, ACDA will be encouraging local chapters to move their communications operations to ChoralNet. South Dakota's state ACDA chapter has been blazing a trail in this regard, recruiting 72 ChoralNet members to their community and posting information about conferences, honor choirs, leadership positions, and so on. They've made great use of the Library feature to post application forms, repertoire listings, sheet music (public domain), and more.
ACDA member groups aren't intended to have active forums; rather, it's a replacement for newsletters and other mailings. ChoralNet expects to be rolling out a number of new features shortly to make the communities more valuable for ACDA member groups.
One of the SDACDA editors wrote:
The best thing about the community is the potential of having an easy communication device that does not include making a huge mass e-mail or mass mailing thru the post office. Also being linked here shortly with national acda will be of extreme help! Also, we have the option for paper forms and online forms for those that like to do everything online. Our last conference and the current associate membership both had a form they could print out and send in and a google form online to use as well. It has been easy to integrate other technology with the ChoralNet Community.Another convienent option available is having multiple editors so that not just one person per say is in charge of keeping things updated. Each honor choir updates their pages and it spreads out the work for all.
Formerly, SDACDA had their own website, which was a significant expense and much more difficult to manage, plus they had to duplicate the management of member emails and the like. They're much happier having moved to ChoralNet.
Looking ahead, ChoralNet and ACDA are going to merge their membership rosters so that all ACDA members will automatically be assigned ChoralNet accounts and be joined to their respective divisions, states, and so on. Once this happens (scheduled for February), ChoralNet will be able to be the principal communications medium for these ACDA user groups.
Marie Grass Amenta says
James D. Feiszli says