Greetings Shooters!

Have you made your plans to join us for the 2024 FTA Fall Championship on November 8th - 10th? We can't wait to see you there! Check out the program HERE!

Don't forget, we are now in the new ATA target year as of 9/1. Please make sure that your ATA dues have been paid to ensure timely posting of your scores and to avoid any extra fees being passed on!

Summer League Shooters: The standings and results can be seen HERE. They are updated as the scores are entered. Trophies are starting to show up! Make sure you get your targets in so you have a shot to win one. If you are having difficulty getting the last of your targets in, don't sweat it! We will extend the deadline a week to account for the tropical weather that blanketed the state last month. We will be awarding the trophies during the "Shooters Reception" on Saturday, November 9th, at the Fall Championship. Trophies will be awarded for Champion, Runner Up, as well as a Champion and Runner Up for each Class!

The 1st Annual Winter League is under development and we hope to kick it off at the Fall Championship. Details to come.

With the Summer League wrapping up, we wanted to give you an inside look at what’s been happening behind the scenes during those sweltering summer months!

Things were a bit slow off of the blocks for several reasons. I don't want to bore you with the specifics so I will keep it quick. Per the bylaws, our terms began on May 1st with the FTA fiscal year. The Spring Championship being delayed and relocated, pushed the hand off to later than we would have liked. The transfer of several FTA business tools did not occur until mid July (we're talking Constant Contact, website access, GoDaddy domain, and FTA social media - you name it) and actually, the social media account is still outstanding.

The process has been much more difficult and frustrating than it needed to be. In an effort to prevent this from happening in the future, we have created FTA owned email addresses and tied the tools to them. The email addresses will be the only thing that will need transferred to new officers. They will then be able to update the contact information (name, phone number, etc.) and be off to the races.

Read on for additional information!

What We've Been Up To!

Added 160+ contacts to our mailing list
Automated the "Join Our Newsletter" form on our webpage.
Created various email templates.
Created a landing page that people can use to self subscribe to our mailing list. This page can be embedded into clickable links like THIS, or accessed via a scannable QR code like THIS.

After we got access to the FTA Constant Contact, we saw an opportunity to use several features that are included in our paid subscription, that we were not utilizing.

I think the single biggest improvement had to do with the "Join our newsletter" form on our webpage. Previously, the information that was submitted through that form was filed away into a data table and forgotten about. I was able to export those contacts and import them into our Constant Contact database. This instantly added 150+ contacts to our mail list and increased the amount of people engaged with our newsletter by 110%!

Next, I was able to create a new "Join our newsletter form and connect it directly to our Constant Contact database via the Constant Contact API. This means that individuals who sign up using that form, will instantly be added to our mailing list. Additionally, they will receive an automated conformation email, confirming their subscription. We have seen several new contacts added using this automated form!

Lastly, we created an automated landing page that can be accessed directly using a link or by scanning a QR code from your camera enabled smart device!

We are just scratching the surface and plan to add additional features to our arsenal in the future!

www.floridatrap.com

Updated website information to the latest available.
Removed or re-directed bad links.
Added SEO to all pages.
Added padding and styling to pages to make them easily read on all platforms.
Updated to latest available frameworks.
Made previous newsletters and blog posts accessible to users.
Added "anchors" to the pages so sub-menus link to proper page locations.
Built a new form for joining our newsletter and connected it to Contact Contact using the Constant Contact API. Also used the Google API to process a reCaptcha to prevent spam entries.
Website metrics are showing the following trends over the month of August 2024 vs August of previous years:
Search Engine hits are up 15%
Unique visitors are up 15%
Page visits are up 35%
NuBrand Media (company who originally built the website and currently manages the server) reached out to me about a "redesign and modernization" of the website.
Quoted price was $5000 but a discount would apply since we are a current customer.
I do not think the cost is justifiable, especially because I can do it for no cost to the organization. This topic will be on the agenda for the next business meeting.

FTA LOGO

Used photoshop to clean-up and touch the logo.
Recolored the image
Removed the background to allow the image to be overlayed on various color and texture backgrounds.
Upscaled the logo to allow for high definition, large format display.
Created several different sizes to optimize image resolution for various print sizes.

Set up a FTA Google Workspace for the Officers and authenticated it against our GoDaddy domain.
Officer email addresses:

president@floridatrap.com

vicepresident@floridatrap.com

secretary-treasurer@floridatrap.com

FTA business/service accounts will be tied to these email addresses, instead of personal accounts. These email addresses will transfer to newly elected officers in perpetuity, to ensure accounts and services are transferred to the incoming Officer in a more timely manner.
Google Drive - set up a file sharing directory for the officers, allowing persistence of FTA documents and collaboration via the "cloud".

Shoot Programs

Upon suggestion from Silver Dollar, we took on the task of modernizing our shoot programs! We have a new, highly modifiable, program template at our disposal, and personally, I think it came out pretty nice.

The front page is intended to market the shoot and act as a standalone flyer that can be printed, and posted, anywhere it may catch a shooters eye.

Going forward, our goal is to have a shoot contract signed with the host club and the program out to the membership well in advance of the shoot. This will allow us to utilize the internet and social media to increase participation!

2024 Fall Championship Program

There is much more in the pipeline so stay tuned!

Feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns!

Shoot Straight!

Thomas Harrington

President - Florida Trapshooters Association

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