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MEMBER SERVICES

The Council of Scottish Clans & Associations (COSCA) provides many services to assist its member Scottish Heritage Societies in growing and achieving their missions. Most of these services are available only to Delegates and Alternates of current Member Societies in the Members-Only section of the Council website. 

 

Clearinghouse: COSCA conducts surveys on a regular basis. The topics planned include use of websites, membership policies and software, relations with clan chiefs, clan tours, coordinating conveners at games and festivals, involvement in genealogy and DNA research, efforts in disseminating clan history, use of social media, engaging younger members, use of online services, and more. The results of these surveys will be used to create a database of "best practices" and to develop training workshops for the COSCA Academy.

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Management: COSCA assists societies in managing their nonprofit organizations by providing a database of sample legal documents such as bylaws and official minutes, assists socities in maintaining their state corporate status, offers tools advice for accounting, and provides training in IRS nonprofit requirements.

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Communications: COSCA offers training to assist member Societies to promote themselves through social media, provides examples from other Societies, develops content for their own communications, and promotes the individual Socities through national partnerships.

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Membership Development: COSCA directs potential members to the individual Societies through online services and in person events, provides training for acquiring and retaining members, provides examples of membership policies and membership software, and develops national and international partnerships to package attractive member benefits.

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Generating Revenue: COSCA researches ways that Societies can supplement their revenues, other than through membership and event fees.

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Games & Festivals: The Council facilitates regular communication with Society conveners and event planners, offers examples of effective guides and materials, maintains a database of games and festivals, secures discounts for banners and print materials, and works with festival planners to promote the societies when no conveners are available (such as through advertisements and COSCA tents with society promotional materials.)

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Clan Tours: COSCA provides "best practices" for organizing and promoting tours, keeps an ongoing calendar of planned clan tours to Scotland, encourages collaboration between clan societies to reduce costs, provides referrals for tour services and venues, networks with Scottish cultural organizations on behalf of the Socities, and provides information and advice for securing tourism grants.

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Genealogy and DNA Analysis: COSCA networks among the societies for "best practices" for offering genealogy research services, maintains a database of all societies that provide family surname Y-DNA groups with FamilyTreeDNA, and negotiates for discounts for services providing genealogy and DNA research.

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Clan Research and History: The Council maintains a library of non-copyrighted historical documents that clans can use to research information about their heritage and ancestors, provides training on using historical documents to generate original content for their websites and social media, subscribes to historical services (such as the UK newspaper archives) that societies can search, and negotiates discounts with online archives on behalf of members. 

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Technical Support: COSCA provides assessments and recommendations for current websites, conducts Google Analytic evaluations of specific websites, provides mentoring, and develops new websites for an additional fee.

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  • COSCA-hosted Zoom Meetings: COSCA will use its Zoom account to assist its members in conducting on-ine gatherings and meeetings  (members only) 

  • Free Website Evaluation and Recommendations by Bart Forbes (members only) 

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Group Discounts: COSCA networks with national and international organizations to secure group discounts for society services and member benefits.

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Advocacy: The Council advocates on behalf of the societies to secure clan travel funding from the Scottish government and to improve relationships between the clan societies and their respective clan chiefs.

   

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