It's Official. I'm Addicted.

I've been working at CWS for over a year now and finally dabbled with a tool that I must admit is utterly fantastic. I regret that I took this long to become a GroupLoop user. My ten year old son is in a sport every season and this year I volunteered as one of the coaches for his basketball team. I certainly have a new appreciation for all that goes into organizing a team and communicating with parents.

I started a GroupLoop account (for free) and set up my son's basketball team. I walked myself through it in a matter of minutes. Because our practices are on different nights, at different times AND in different locations, keeping it all straight is a challenge. That's just the practices. There are also games, locations, tournaments, kids' names and jersey numbers, and snack schedules. What if I needed to communicate with another parent? What about photo day? What color shorts are they supposed to wear again? I know I saw it somewhere once. So much to remember in so many different emails.

GroupLoop has helped me to deal with it all. It is a fantastic, easy organizational tool that allowed me to enter all the parents' names and emails. Then it does the work of communicating with them. I can enter the practice schedule, click a box to email all parents automatically and house documents like maps to gyms, tournament brackets, snack schedules, and plays. I never have to send an email again: they're sent for me, and if parents need to refer back to something, it's all there. Nice, neat, and organized.

My favorite feature is that it adds the calendar events into my work calendar! I get reminders about practice, when it is and where it's being held a few hours before the event.

I also like the message board. It emails parents with reminders like, "Remember to have your child wear their jerseys to practice; that's how we are able to divide into teams and practice our plays effectively."

If you're trying to schedule something and you need to know who will attend, there is a great RSVP feature.

It doesn't guarantee that your team will win all their games, but it's certainly a valuable coach's assistant. You can watch the GroupLoop demo and sign up for a free account if you're interested in experimenting. I'll warn you, though, you may quickly become like me: an official GroupLoop addict.