Fall Cleaning for Your 4-H App

During the Fall, all 4-H professionals are in full recruitment and year-long planning. If your app is hosted with Grandstand, don’t forget to update your calendar and information in the app as well! Your 4-H app is a key component of your communication strategy and we are here to help. Just a reminder, in general terms, of some of the areas that you should be updating as you are planning for your new 4-H year.

1. Calendar of Events - This is the first place many people will look to see when their events are happening. Your year-round schedule should be up to date with all of the new events. Whether you update the calendar directly in Grandstand, or if it is integrated from your Google Calendar, make sure the dates, times and locations are added. If you need help loading the full year’s schedule, we can help you batch upload from a spreadsheet.
2. Projects List - If you have a list of your projects, or even just a list of the categories that you then link to a website, make sure those are updated and ready to go. Links may have changed so those can be updated or you might have new titles for projects.
3. Forms & Applications - If you have a list of necessary forms & applications, now might be the time to update those links. In addition, new forms might need to be added to your list, or old ones removed.
4. Social Media or News Links - Within the last year, Grandstand has upgraded the social media and new feeds. Prior to the updates this year, we could only integrate Twitter feeds. Now, however, we can integrate news feeds, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube so the photos, text and videos play right in the app. No more linking away!
5. Staff - We know sometimes staff changes happen, especially over the summer and into the Fall, so make sure you update your staff list and contact information. Keeping your contact info up to date is important!
6. Menus - Practice some Fall Cleaning! If you have long a menu on the main screen, now might be a good time to edit it so you have fewer links, and make it easier for your users to find the information they need. If your Fair was in Summer or early Fall, you could move the links related to the fair into the side menu, clearing the main screen for the most pertinent info! Or consider just rearranging the menu items to make the featured content the first they see.
7. Volunteer Training - You might be experiencing an influx of volunteers and you can’t do the training in person due to restrictions. Grandstand’s lessons tool provides a way for you to deliver key information as a training tool, in an easy-to-follow format. Your users will open the training piece in the app, you have the combo of photos/text/videos, delivered one piece at a time, to help them move along. In addition, you can include quiz questions within the lesson to make sure they understand the concepts.
8. Add some Fun! Grandstand has tools that you may not have been using, now is the time to give them a try! We have modules that make it easy for you to:
   • deliver a lesson or step-by-step instruction,
   • quiz youth to start prepping them for skill-a-thons later on
   • set up a scavenger hunts to engage your users (maybe a cross-promotion between the website and app, set up a scavenger hunt in the app that asks questions they can answer by going to the website!),
   • offer a photo contest and have participants send in their favorite photo using the survey tool,
   • take your users on an audio tour of key places around an area, with stops marked on the map and audio clips included as you or your youth advisory board members narrate

Using Grandstand to communicate with your 4-H members and volunteers is a great way to increase use of this essential tool. You have invested in a great method of delivering to your members, we just want to make sure you are using it to the best of its abilities! If you have any questions, please contact Melissa Abele, melissa@grandstandapps.com, or visit our website, grandstandapps.com/learn, to learn more about any of the modules.