It actually started way back in the early 90's when my wife and I decided to get a dog. We picked a Border Collie and then got a second one a year later. We joined a local dog sports club doing dog agility. Over the years I gradually became increasingly involved in the club. Eventually becoming the agility trial coordinator. One of the biggest puzzles in holding an event is coordinating volunteers. Each event needs about ten people helping while each dog is running each course. Holding several events every year created a volunteer coordination nightmare. Our club has a volunteer policy where members are required to give twelve volunteer hours per year for each person. This helped, but the volunteering still had to be coordinated by someone. Our volunteer coordinator would need to negotiate endlessly with people to get all the volunteers organized. Often times she would resort to cold calling members pleading for help, and it would never be a complete success. All of that was happening as the Web took off. I was working as a programmer...

That was 2008.. Every year, in mid-February, I would send an email out to all of last year’s members saying that the volunteer pages are coming out in a couple of weeks and that it is time to join again. Suddenly, everybody that hasn't joined yet comes back right away. In March, I would send out an email with links to all the volunteer pages for the season and by the end of that day, some 90% of the volunteer slots are taken. People scramble to get the jobs they prefer. (Personally, I like to be a scribe - a job I secretly grab before the links are sent out. A member once told me that she got the volunteer link email, went to get a coffee and when she returned all the spots she wanted were taken).

My agility club now uses The Signup Place for joining the club, volunteering, and registering for trails, including payments. All the volunteer coordination, membership coordination and volunteer hour tracking jobs have been simplified. The volunteer coordinator job was made simpler with reminder emails generated for each volunteer (individually) that includes their position and events they have committed to along with job descriptions. The Signup Place handles Membership renewal by sending out renewal emails and removing non-renewed members at the deadline. We maintain our membership list on The Signup Place; volunteer hours are now fully tracked. New members receive a link to an online membership form (on the club's private member group) instead of receiving an emailed PDF to be filled out, printed and mailed to a membership coordinator to enter into a spreadsheet. Once they join, each member has their own personal homepage that lists all their trial jobs, volunteer hours, plus a list of available signup pages. They also register their dogs for the trials and can pay for runs using PayPal.