Customer Snapshot
- 700+: Current Members
- 48: Years Running
- 7: Club-Hosted Events
- 20+: Timed Races
Twin City Track Club: A Community-First Club
The Twin City Track Club (TCTC) has a long history, having been founded in 1977 to promote running and ensure there were local races in their hometown of Winston Salem, NC. Today, it’s a multi-faceted non-profit club and a member of the Road Runners Club of America and United States Track and Field. From providing social and running opportunities to local runners and walkers to offering low-cost timing and advisory services to community events, the club focuses on ways to improve the world around them.
They put this community-first ethos into action:
- Races: The club owns and hosts seven of their own races, with multiple club members stepping up as volunteer race directors. There’s an option for everyone, including walker-friendly 5K’s, a trail 30K, and a Black Friday relay.
- Volunteer Opportunities: TCTC members are encouraged to give back by volunteering in the community. In addition to volunteer options at their events, volunteer teams help with park clean-ups and regular club operations.
- Race Timing: a core piece of the club’s community work is providing low-cost timing services for smaller local races, most with a few hundred participants. This is a valuable service for nonprofits hosting races. In addition to the on-site timing services, the experienced race team can provide small organizations with key guidance and advice.
An Integrated Experience with RunSignup
Twin City Track Club has worked with RunSignup for a decade. First, they moved their member registration to RunSignup Clubs. Then, they shifted registration for their owned races, followed by incentivizing partner races to move as well. Keeping all the data on RunSignup made it easier for the club to manage key information, and ensured a seamless integration with their Agee Race Timing software.
With the upgrade from RunSignup Clubs to Memberships, TCTC had been able to take further advantage of RunSignup tools.
Member Registration and Management with Memberships
- TCTC offers two simple membership options: an individual, and a family (up to 6 people), with the option to join for 12 or 36 months.
- Members can opt for auto-renewal so they don’t forget to re-up at the end of their membership term.
- The TCTC website links to membership self-serve options, allowing members to easily search for their member information, update member details, and access the store to make additional purchases.
Race Registration and Management with RunSignup
The seven club-managed races all host their registration on RunSignup. This makes it simple for both the club and it’s members.
- Races are able to easily add discounts for members, with those discounts auto-applied when a member is signed in.
- In addition to their club-owned events, TCTC incentivizes their partner races that they time to utilize RunSignup. In doing so, it’s easy for them to include the races on their event list, easily access participant data, and quickly post results.
“I’m always impressed by how comprehensive RunSignup is on the race side. There are so many features and components, and I’m ever-grateful for the search bar so I can find what I need within all the options.”
– Chris Cutler, Twin City Track Club Webmaster
Member Events with TicketSignup
TCTC has wide-ranging opportunities for members, including several events that use TicketSignup Ticket Events for speedy sign-ups to track expected attendance for events. These include:
- Standalone volunteer events unrelated to a race (like park clean-ups)
- Post-race food and drink tickets for friends and family of participants (included for the participants)
- One-off runs like a fun Halloween Run
A Dynamic Club Website
Prior to the release of Memberships, Twin City Track Club was hosting their website via RunSignup’s legacy partner websites. With the V2 website version in Memberships, the club decided to upgrade not only the membership side, but the website. While there was some initial “cut-and-paste” legwork to copy the content from their partner website to their Memberships website, the results are worth it. And with the new built-in Website Builder, adding and editing content is easier than ever. The TCTC website is a full content website that does so much more than just sign people up. Highlights include:
- An easily understandable menu hierarchy to help members find past and future events, provide information about event services, and share information about the club.
- A dynamic event list displaying all upcoming owned races, partner races, and other club events (including ticket events)
- A dynamic list of races offering a discount to club members
- A members-only page for gated content accessible only to club members.
- A store option to sell club merch both within and outside of the membership registat
- Self-serve options for members to quickly and easily access and update their member details
A Full Content Website
An Easy Website Builder
A 24/7 Merch Store
Automatic Race Discounts Displayed
“The value of having our club website on RunSignup is the integration with the rest of the program. Races and social events on TicketSignup show automatically, and we can pull in clubs discounts automatically.”
– Er Ralston, Twin City Track Club Race Timing
Saving Money and Time with Free Email
Email is extremely important to the operations and community-building efforts of the Twin City Track Club. In addition to a regular newsletter that has moved to an entirely digital format, they regularly communicate with members about upcoming volunteer opportunities and member-events, as well as race-specific emails.
For many years, the club had to pay for a costly email subscription to Constant Contact to manage their thousands of contacts and send regular emails. With the upgrade to Email V2 in races providing professional email templates, they were initially able to move their race communications to RunSignup and limit their Constant Contact usage to club-specific communications. Now, with the Email V2 upgrade in the Memberships platform, TCTC can send all email communications from RunSignup and save the money that was previously spent on an outside email platform.
Pre-Race Email
The Flyer Newsletter
Volunteer Request
The TCTC team is particularly excited about the new Image Gallery feature that lets them upload an image once and use it across all their emails and websites. With organized folders, they’ve made it simple to find and add the right image in the right place.
Using Image Gallery in an Email
“The email component has been really advantageous for us. It’s so much easier to maintain separate club lists along with race-specific ones. To highlight how simple it is to use: Er once had to send an email to all race participants to inform them of a storm-related race delay. In that crucial situation, he had the email drafted and sent to all participants in under 5 minutes. It’s pretty cool.”
– Chris Cutler, Twin City Track Club Webmaster
A Long History, A Bright Future
Maintaining a running club for nearly five decades is a true challenge that takes a passionate and engaged membership. But today, with a large member base and a huge community footprint, the Twin City Track Club is thriving. We are looking forward to how they continue to evolve over the next fifty years!
We really appreciate the fact that RunSignup is leading edge with technology. We really know that if we’re with RunSignup, we’re with the best platform out there for what we do. It’s a wonderful value – all the features and services are available for free. RunSignup is just a fantastic value and platform for timers, race organizers, and clubs.
– Er Ralston, Twin City Track Club Race Timing