The Strathspey server contains a list of SCD groups all over the world. This list is, for the most part, derived from publically-accessible sources such as the RSCDS home page, the Celtic Circle web site, or the Inter-City Scot (of blessed memory). If you’re in charge of an SCD group which is listed, we’re happy for you to take over management of that group’s entry so we no longer need to rely on those sources to keep the group information current. Adopting your group will also unlock some other cool and useful features, like the ability to create a “membership group” of my.strathspey users who are members of your group, or the ability to add events that your SCD group is putting on to the Strathspey database of events, for visibility and possibly to manage registrations.
Go find your SCD group’s entry on the Strathspey server, by navigating to the SCD groups list, selecting the appropriate country and then looking for the SCD group in the resulting list. (If your SCD group isn’t there at all, then we’ll be happy to add it; let us know.) Display your SCD group’s detail page by clicking on the group name.
Alternatively, use the SCD groups world map to zero in on your location and display your SCD group’s detail page by picking it from the detail menu which appears when you click on the map marker for your location.
Verify that your group’s detail page has a red banner saying “This entry was generated automatically …”. Click on the “let us know” link in that banner. This will bring up the “Adoption” page.
Read the explanation on the “Adoption” page. As a security measure, if you try to adopt an SCD group entry, an automated message will be sent to the contact e-mail address in the group’s entry. Whoever receives that message will need to approve the adoption attempt in order for it to go forward, so if the contact e-mail address goes to anyone other than you, you’ll want to give that person a heads-up so they aren’t surprised. Once you’re happy with that idea, click on the red “Adopt this database entry” button.
The person receiving the “Adoption Request” e-mail will need to go to the URL in that e-mail and click “Confirm” on that page to confirm the request. This must happen within 7 days of the e-mail being sent, so don’t do this while your group’s secretary is hiking in the Australian outback for three months and doesn’t check the group’s e-mail.
Once that is done, the red “This entry was generated automatically …” banner on your group’s detail page should be gone, and near the bottom of that page there should be a note saying that this page is now being maintained by you.
Having adopted the database entry for your group, you will now be responsible, for the indefinite future, for changing the contact information on that page if, e.g., your group secretary changes or you decide to become affiliated with the RSCDS. Use the blue “Edit SCD Group Information” button on the SCD group’s detail page to display the SCD group editing form.
Pro-Tip: Don’t use people’s personal e-mail addresses as the contact points for your SCD group. “alice@gmail.com” is bad. “east-podunk-scd-club@gmail.com” is better. “info@east-podunk-scd-club.org” is best because domain names are reasonably cheap and this address will remain valid even if Google goes bankrupt and “gmail.com” disappears. (If you like Google Mail, you can use the “east-podunk-scd-club.org” domain and still get your e-mail via Google Mail – explaining how this works is beyond the scope of these instructions –, but the point is that you can move the domain to wherever you like if necessary and the “info@east-podunk-scd-club.org” address will never need to change.)
It is a good idea to create a “membership group” that is associated with your SCD group. This lets you restrict content on my.strathspey (such as dance lists or collections in the SCDDB) to members of your SCD group, and you can also extend the right to change the SCD group information on Strathspey or the right to add events to the Strathspey event database on behalf of your SCD group to other trusted group members (which is a great idea because you will be able to go hiking in the Australian outback for three months without having to be on hand to do these things). In the future, a membership group will also give you a convenient way to get in touch with all your SCD group members (at least those who are on my.strathspey) by e-mail, without having to maintain an explicit list of addresses.
You can create a membership group by clicking on the grey “Add User Group” button on the SCD group’s detail page. This will bring up an “Add User Group” form where you can modify the membership group’s name (it will default to “your-group-name-in-lowercase-members” but could be anything that isn’t otherwise being used), add a description of the membership group, and specify whether the membership group should be “private” (i.e, you need to add new members manually), “visible” (i.e., the group shows up in the group directory and people can apply to join), or “public” (i.e., the group shows up in the group directory and people can join with a simple click). Clicking on the blue “Create Group” button will create the group and add it to your SCD group’s database entry as the membership group.
After creating the membership group you will end up on the membership group’s page (which can otherwise be found via the “User Groups” tab in your personal profile). Use “Add Members” to add other my.strathspey users to the group, and “Promote Selected” to elevate existing group members to group admins.
As we mentioned before, the admins of an SCD group’s membership group can not only add other my.strathspey users to the membership group (or remove them again), but they can also edit the SCD group’s details and add events on behalf of that group. This is obviously a position of considerable trust and people should be made membership group admins only with appropriate caution.
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