Reading Between The Wines Book Club is a pet project that I’m very proud of! What started off as a joke has now become a structured club that meets once per month somewhere on the west end of the Twin Cities. I’ll answer your burning question right now…yes, we read the books. Well, most of us do.
As the self-proclaimed president of the club, I take on the responsibility of updating the club’s website, sending out a Doodle scheduler to plan upcoming meetings, checking the club’s email, making dinner reservations for the month’s meeting, and when it’s book pick night, I organize the seemingly complicated procedure so it’s seamless.
It started with me being bored one day and I thought it would be funny to create a book club application. It was merely a funny way to “screen” potential applicants and to communicate the overall tone of our club. It was completely unnecessary because every member of the book club is either related to me, one of my closest friends, or is a neighbor of a book club member.
Oddly enough, the lady who previously organized a book club where I was a member submitted a membership application to join our newly formed book club. There was no doubt that she would be accepted but unfortunately, she never became a member because our monthly meetings were too far for her liking.
Domain Registry of America, one of America’s fastest-growing domain registrars, emailed the club to sell the domain readingbetweenthewinesclub.com. The website had always been hosted on Weebly with their free plan which meant no dedicated domain to call our own.
Everything was going smoothly and no one tried to hijack our free URL but as time went on, I began to wonder…what if our club’s identity and name were stolen by some other wine and book-loving group?
I’d put so much time and effort into crafting our online presence by designing our website, opening a matching book club email account, and creating a branded Facebook page, that I began to panic that it could all be gone! So when I read the email from Domain Registry of America, I jumped at the opportunity to secure our club brand.
The annual price for the domain was surprisingly reasonable and to show their appreciation for all of my work, I began to receive donations in the form of free drinks and snacks at our monthly book club meetings.
To this day, we are regularly approached over social media or our website by people wanting to become a member of our club or are looking for advice on how to start a book club of their own. Who knew that making a silly application would act as a catalyst for finding life-long friends?
MollyCule3 