In the Club
Set up an online to-do list for members
An online to-do list will help you to run your club more efficiently and remind members of tasks that still need to be done. There are plenty of free tools available for putting these together – here we explain how to use three of the best.
Gmail Tasks
It’s hidden away, but Tasks is a simple to-do tool that you can access from your Gmail inbox. Unlike the two other tools we cover here, you can’t share tasks with other people. However, as long as your club has its own Gmail account, anyone with access to that will be able to review, create and complete tasks.
To use it, click the Tasks icon (a pen next to an orange circle) on the right-hand side of the Gmail window – if you can’t see it, click the ‘<’ button in the bottomright corner. Next, click ‘Add a task’, then enter a name for the task, along with any additional details in the box below (click ‘Date/time’ to set a reminder).
Your task will now appear in a list below. Once you’ve completed it, click the circle to its right. You can also create tasks from the emails in your inbox – right-click an email, select ‘Add to tasks’ (see screenshot below) and a new task will be created and named using the email’s subject line.
Microsoft To Do
Last year, Microsoft closed Wunderlist – a popular to-do list tool it had bought five years previously. Although this angered fans of of the tool, its replacement, Microsoft To Do, has many of the same features.
It works across all devices, so your club members will be able to access it on their PC, laptop, phone and tablet (download the apps from https://todo.microsoft.com).
It’s also very easy to use. Click ‘New list’ at the bottom of the menu on the left, then give it a name. You can share the list by clicking the Share button (icon of two silhouettes, top right), copying the link, then emailing it to your club’s members. The number under the Share button indicates how many people have joined the list – click this button to see their email addresses or remove them from the group.
If you no longer want to share the list, click ‘Manage access’, then Stop Sharing. Alternatively, set the ‘Limit access to…’ slider to On (see screenshot above) to keep your existing members while preventing new people joining the list.
You can add details to each task by selecting it in the list and entering text in the ‘Add note’ section at the bottom. Click ‘Assign to’ to delegate that task to a specific member (their initials will then appear next to the item in the list). You can also set reminders for each item, add a due date and mark them as being high priority (by clicking the star icon).
Trello
When you’re organising a large club event, you’ll need something more powerful than Gmail Tasks or Microsoft To Do. We recommend Trello ( www.trello.com). Once you’ve created a Trello board for your club (click Boards, then ‘Create new board…’), you can then add several lists to it, each of which can contain a selection of ‘cards’ (think of these as your to-do list items). You can then assign each card to a specific member and drag them to different lists as appropriate.
For example, you could have lists of Assigned, In-progress and Done, then move to-do items along these as they progress. If you have a lot of items, it’s worth using labels to colour-code them – click an item, select ‘Edit labels’ (see screenshot below), then give your label a name and assign it a colour.
To share your Trello board, click the Invite button at the top, then enter an email address or click ‘Create link’ and share it with your club members.
Earlier this year, Trello added a range of new features that let you see your tasks in different ways (such as in a timeline or on a calendar – click the Board button to see all options). However, you'll need a Business licence to use these, which costs from £9 per month.
For a more in-depth guide on how to use Trello, see Issue 567 (page 48) or take a look at the online help at www.snipca. com/38945.