Team Spotlight Instructions

Team Spotlight Instructions

Are you looking for a free, fun way to show your Team Captains how much they mean to the Foundation? Many events have created a “Team Spotlight” that we wanted to share with you. The Team Spotlight is a way to show your teams they are appreciated and encourage their involvement while publicizing the Arthritis Walk.

Step 1: Create list of teams and the week they will be featured.

a) Start with teams that are great examples to other teams like committee teams, past top teams and sponsor teams

b) Call the Team Captain two to three weeks prior to let them know they will be featured. The more notice, the more results you will see. Ask questions to find out their team plans for this year and any messages they want to share on the page.

c) Be flexible! Sometimes new teams pop up or should be featured at a different time in the schedule. Knowing your teams will make the best schedule possible.

Spotlight Week / Team Name / Team Captain / Phone Number / E-mail
5-Mar / Wendy's Walkers / Wendy Smith / 555-5555 /
12-Mar / Arthritis Warriors / Josh Burns / 555-5555 /

Step 2: Highlight the team’s story and success on your Sphere homepage.

(Scroll down for step by step instructions.)

Step 3: Use the team’s story in your Facebook and Twitter content for the week.

“Team Wendy’s Walkers is our featured team of the week. Learn more about why they walk” (Link to Sphere site)

“Our Arthritis Warriors are a new team this year. Learn more about their upcoming fundraiser and why they got involved.” (Link to Sphere site)

Tag the Team Captain in a post so they are recognized, “@Wendy Smith and her top team are featured on our Arthritis Walk site. Thanks to Wendy and Wendy’s Warriors for their hard work.” (Link to Sphere site)

Adding a Feature Box to Sphere Site Home Pages

The information below provides basic instructions on adding a feature box to the home pages of your Sphere sites. The code allows you to add a photo and some text to feature teams, participants or honorees. While there are a multitude of variations you can use in font size, colors, borders, and other elements, it’s a best practice to be consistent with the format and branding as much as possible. The more consistent you are, the more recognizable the feature becomes to site visitors.

There are three main steps to adding the feature box to your site:

1. Upload the sized photo to your account-level image library. Photos on the home page should be no larger than 300px wide or 200px height. Best practice is to restrict the width to under 250px wide.

2. Copy and save the existing text/code from the Front Page Customization area into a separate file

3. Customize the code with your local information and image; save this as a separate modified file. Upload the modified html code with the link to your image into the Front Page Customization area

Step 1: Upload the sized image into your Image Library

1. Before you start, make sure the image is already sized.

2. Navigate to your account-level image library. (ControlAdministrationToolsImage Library)

3. If you already have an image folder created where you want the image stored, click on the Upload button to upload your images. Otherwise, create a new folder for the social media icons.

4. Click on the Browse button to locate the image on your hard drive.

5. Name the image and choose the folder where you want it stored.

6. Click Upload

7. Return to the Image Library and locate the image you uploaded. When you find the image, click on the link next to it. It will open up a new window. You will use the URL address in this window to get the absolute path to the image for use in your code.

8. Copy the URL in the address bar. Paste the URL into Notepad for later use.

Step 2: Copy and save the original code in a separate file

1. Before you make ANY changes to your site, make sure you copy the original code and save it in a .txt file so you can restore it later if necessary. On your computer, go to Start>Programs>Accessories>Notepad.

2. Log in to your Sphere account and navigate to the Front Page Customization section in the Webinfo Checklist area.

3. In the Body text box, highlight all of the text, copy it, and paste it into Notepad. Save the file in Notepad as a .txt file (ex: 2012AW-Dallas.txt)

Step 3: Add the code and image to your web page

1. Highlight and copy the html code from one of the examples below. Paste the code into Notepad and save it as a .txt file just as you did in Step 2. Add some type of identifier to the filename to make it easy to identify later. (ex: 2012AW-Dallas_modified.txt). NOTE: DO NOT copy the code below directly from Word and paste it into Sphere! Copy it into Notepad and save it as a .txt file!

2. In the modified file, search the code for the IMG tag. This is where you will need to add the link to your local image that you retrieved in Step 1 . (see the highlighted link in the example). Add the link to your image in the code and save the modified file again.

3. Next, log in to your Sphere account and navigate to the Webinfo Checklist area of your event. Click on the Front Page Customization link.

4. Copy the html code from the modified text file and paste it into the Body section.

5. Return to Webinfo Checklist and click on the Update Your Event Now (green button)

EXAMPLE – Team Spotlight

<span class="title" text-align: center;>Team Spotlight - The LI SUPPORT TEAM</span<br />

img style="float:right; margin-left: 9px; alt="Team Long Island photo" src="https://www.kintera.com/AccountTempFiles/account10426/images/C50399Walk.jpg" /<p style="clear:rightcolor: black; font-size: 14px; font-family: arial, tahoma, sans-serif;"<strong>The LI Support Team has participated in the Arthritis Walk for over eight years! With plenty of team spirit and their walking shoes, they are ready once again to join with family and friends at the 2012 Arthritis Walk. Together their fundraising efforts provide support for education, programs and research into the causes and cure for arthritis./strong>

The above code will render the following result:

ANOTHER EXAMPLE – Featured Honoree

<IMG style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom:5px; margin-left: 9px; float: right;" src="http://www.kintera.org/atf/account10445/images/CourtneyWarren250.jpg" ALT="Courtney"<b>Meet Courtney - Our 2012 Dallas Arthritis Walk Hero</b<brbr<a<span style="color:#000000">Courtney is a special little girl whose flaming red hair and blue eyes earn her compliments on her beauty wherever she goes - the library, grocery store, doctor's office. What people can't tell is that she struggles with systemic juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

It was extremely painful for her to walk and painful for her parents to watch. After a missed diagnosis, she was referred to a pediatric rheumatologist, but not before she began experiencing severe joint pain in her wrists and neck. Her stiff neck, swollen wrists and hip soreness made it heart-wrenching to dress Courtney, change her diaper, or put her in a car seat.

She has to endure injections and additional medications to keep the arthritis from doing more damage to her joints. She is a brave girl who "helps" by carrying a syringe containing her medication to her Daddy each night, saying, "Doctor said shot." Since JRA is a disease without a cure, Courtney will live her lifetime managing pain and medications./a>

</div>

The above code will render the following result:

Troubleshooting/Tips

· Always keep the original file and the modified file separate. Make your changes in the modified file. If you make mistakes or break the code, you can always restore the original front page.

· When you add the content, make sure that you add it between

·  and !-- END LOCAL CONTENT -->. If you don’t stay within that code, you run the risk of breaking other code on the page.

· Make sure you turn “Word Wrap” off in Notepad before you copy/paste the modified code into the Front Page Customization area. If you don’t, Sphere will add spaces and breaks picked up from the wrapped text.

· If your image displays a box with a red “X”, you’ve got a broken image link. Return to the image library and make sure the image hasn’t been deleted. If it hasn’t been deleted, copy the link to the image again and paste it in the modified code.

For any questions regarding Sphere, contact the help desk at http://support.arthritis.org.