February 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 75

Sports Team and League Management
Even the most casual recreational teams and leagues require
participant registration, regular communication, record-keeping, and scheduling. Each of the following websites offers a robust array of team/league management functions at no cost.
■■ eSportsdesk.com: This site specializes in free, multi-functional
websites for teams, leagues, tournaments, and multi-team associations. The interface allows for general team administration,
scoring/statistics data manipulation, and publication of schedules, locations, policies, rosters, and player profiles
■■ Scorebook.com: Like eSportsdesk, Scorebook focuses on free
websites addressing the primary needs of organizers and participants. It offers a simple interface, and it is geared especially
toward baseball and softball league play.

■■ ETeamz.com: Eteamz handles the same management and com-

munication responsibilities as Sportsdesk (with a few additional
bells and whistles such as custom team logo and website banner). This site also offers some fundraising support features and
payment collection tools. A small percentage is charged for each
transaction, but organizers, coaches, and participants will likely
find the integrated payment system more convenient to use than
in-person collection or PayPal requests.

Community-Building
While automated website tools such as the ones above are important for fostering group identity, the best all-around community-building tools for agencies and volunteers can be found
on Facebook and Twitter. If your agency is not already leveraging these social media powerhouses, then now is the time to
create accounts and pages and invite your patrons to connect
with you. While the core functions are powerful even without
add-ons, the following apps can boost the reach and effectiveness of your " friend-raising " efforts.
■■ Twitter allows for much more than just steady streams of information and links. It has such dynamic, interactive add-ons as
online " micro-survey " creation (TwtPoll), video tweets (Twiddeo), and photo sharing (TwitPic).
■■ While Facebook (without any add-ons at all) has everything
most organizations need for inviting and updating the community on news and programs, the new popularity of the iPad
has made the " Friendly for Facebook " app one of the most frequently downloaded new Facebook enhancements. Quite simply, " Friendly for Facebook " optimizes Facebook's presentation
for the touch-based iPad.

Event Planning and Promotion
■■ Plan

your event through a wiki-that is, organize volunteers,
publish relevant documents, establish project milestones, run
virtual meetings, and solicit team feedback in a collaborative,

w w w . NR P A . ORG

FEBRUARY 2011

Parks & Recreation 73

Bo Virkelyst Jensen / addSoul design studio

ot so long ago, most free tools on the Web took
the form of either introductory trials or downloadable software too buggy for organizational
use. The " free killer app, " however, has become the new standard of web service marketing, with developers offering users powerful, specialized
applications in the hopes of growing their e-mail lists, selling
users on premium-level add-ons, or luring sponsors and advertisers. That is good news for agencies operating programs
on shoestring budgets-or trying to equip volunteers with team
websites and event planning, promotion, and fundraising tools.
Some of these online tools are " standalone, " while others
function as add-on " apps " for social media or mobile phone
platforms. The list of Web-based software tools below represents a cross-section of functions commonly performed by
park and recreation staff and park friends groups. All are mature, sophisticated tools with large user communities behind
them. And, while free software usually comes without such
frills as technical support, the applications and websites listed below are all known for being user-friendly and intuitive.

February 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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