It’s all happening on SherardFamily.com y’all! This article sums up all the new features and the ones that are coming soon. Webmaster Rachel is hard at work bringing the vision for our website fully to life.
The ultimate goal is for this site to be a hub for communication and sharing of family knowledge and history. Back in the day we lived closer together, or created and distributed newsletters. Today we have this website!
New Event: Watch Party
We tried it our during one of the Literary Cafe Potluck event sessions and it was a hit! So we’re making it a regular event for the future. It won’t be pre-scheduled monthly like our other two events, but we will be sure to announce when they’re happening.
Our first official Watch Party event is happening on Halloween – Monday October 31st. Get more info about it by clicking this link.
Treasurer’s Report
The 2022 Reunion Treasurer’s report is finally available! Find out how to get your copy by clicking this link.
Site Re-Structuring
After some of the experiences of the 2022 Virtual Reunion, Webmaster Rachel has made some big changes to improve the stability and security of our site. The main thing is that it has been broken down into multiple sub-sites.
You may notice that the URL changes slightly as you navigate—the Swag Shop is at shop.sherardfamily.com and the Members site is at members.sherardfamily.com. But from the front end it all is seamless with matching layout and header navigation. This is the magic! Please contact us if you’re interested in learning more.
Bimonthly & Event Emails
We’ve changed the way we’re sending out emails—instead of reminding everyone about each event, we’re sending a bimonthly “Updates” email with reminders about the events along with any pertinent announcements.
If you want to still get reminders for the events, you can set custom subscription settings by clicking this link. We are also working on a printable calendar that will be available for download or by subscription for those who like to put it up on the fridge.
Swag Shop Re-Opening
The Swag Shop is up and running and ready for orders! And there’s a few changes there too—including restructured categories to make it easier to shop right from the main navigation menu. Coming soon we’ll have new products for winter like throw blankets, embroidered beanie hats and bomber jackets.
We’ve also made a slight profit margin increase from 15-25% to 25-30% so that we can better cover the taxes and fees charged by our drop shippers. You can read more about the Swag shop profits and plans in the Treasurer’s Report.
Members Site
Our Members site is still under construction, but it is going to be packed with exciting social features. These will include user Profiles, ability to create and join groups, earning points and badges that you can show off for bragging rights, and more.
The biggest highlight will be Our Collection—an online archive where we’ll collect family stories, photos, documents, recipes, wisdom, creative works…anything you can think of, all tagged and organized to be easy to search and explore. Imagine how amazing this will be for future generations to have!
There’s quite a lot to be excites about! As long as you’re on our email list you’ll be sure to get all the updates as things are released, along with reminders to check out all the cool things we’ve got going on!