Composer Walkthrough

This article walks through each of the six steps you'll see in the Email Composer. Open the composer from any of its three entry points (see Sending Emails for where to find them) and step through with the Next button.

Step 1 - Sender & Template

This step is where you pick the type of email you're sending. The choice you make here drives a lot of what follows: the visual template, the banner, the default sender and signoff roles, and (in step 2) the default recipients.

• Style - Branded wraps your message in the full Ramblers template: banner, events, social links and footer. Unbranded sends a plain rich-text email that reads like a personal note, which suits committee replies and one-to-few correspondence; choosing it hides the banner and events options because they don't apply.
• Email Type - the dropdown lists every email configuration set up on your site. Picking one fills in the Banner Image (the image at the top of the email) and the email's underlying template (its layout and any built-in wording). Most committees only need Newsletter day-to-day; specialised types like Welcome to the Group or Expired Members Warning are set up for specific situations. Click View or Edit Settings to jump straight to the email configuration in mail settings if you need to tweak the underlying defaults.
• Banner Image - usually picked automatically by the email type, but you can override it.
• Template content - some email types carry built-in wording, maintained as part of the website itself. If the type you pick has any, it appears in the Compose step as a Template content section. To change that wording, edit the email configuration in Mail Settings - see Customising Email Wording.
• Sender, reply-to and sign-off - three dropdowns that say which role the email comes from, where replies should go, and which roles sign off at the bottom. The defaults come from the email type. The Select All As Me button is a one-click way of putting yourself in all three roles - useful when an email is purely from you.
• You can also add BCC Roles if the email should be copied to other committee roles silently.

Step 2 - Recipients

The recipients step asks who is this email going to? Because you picked an email type in step 1, this step often comes pre-filled - the email configuration carries default recipient settings, so by the time you arrive here the right list (or the right member-selection filter) may already be chosen for you. You can still change anything you want.

You have two top-level choices.

• A whole mailing list - one email goes out to the entire list at once. Pick the list from the radio buttons underneath; the count next to each list tells you how many people are subscribed. This is the right choice for newsletters and any other broadcast where every subscriber should get the same message.
• Specific members - the email is sent individually to each person you choose, with each recipient's first name merged into the body. Choose this when only some members should receive the email.

Whichever you choose, a green Recipients chosen bar confirms exactly who the email will go to before you move on.

When you choose Specific members, an extra panel appears so you can build up the list of recipients. Under Limit to a mailing list, pick Any member or one of your mailing lists as the source, then narrow the list with one of the Pre-filter shortcuts:

• All with email - every member who has an email address recorded.
• Added in last N month(s) - members created recently. The "N" comes from the Months In Past setting on the email configuration, so newer members are picked out automatically.
• Expired (N month(s) past expiry) - members whose membership has expired more than N months ago, ignoring lifetime members and anyone created or updated in the last month.
• Added in last bulk load - members who arrived in your most recent bulk load file.
• Missing from bulk load (N months or more) - members who haven't appeared in a bulk load file for N months or more.
• Clear and choose manually - empties the selection so you can tick members one at a time from the dropdown.

Each chosen member appears as a chip you can remove with the small "x", and the count to the right of the radio row (for example, "12 of 255 selected") tells you how many will receive the email.

Step 3 - Compose

This is where you write the email itself.

Subject - the line your recipients see in their inbox. The email type fills this in for you, but you can change it.

Salutation - the greeting at the start of the email. Choose Hi {{firstName}}, to address each person personally (the system replaces {{firstName}} with their actual first name when the email is sent), Hi all, for a generic group greeting, or No greeting to start straight into the body.

Sections - the email is built from a stack of sections. By default you'll see:

• Body / intro - the main text you write.
• Template content - any built-in content the email type provides (some types include this, others don't).
• Events list - upcoming events from the calendar (configured in step 4).
• Signoff - the closing line and sign-off names.

You can drag any section to reorder it, click the > chevron on a section to open it for editing, or click the red bin to remove it.

Adding to the body

Click the chevron on Body / intro to open a rich text editor below the section header. The toolbar gives you bold, italic, headings, bullet and numbered lists, blockquote, links, tables, image actions (add, edit, replace, remove an image), and an Insert merge field dropdown for placeholders like the recipient's first name. The editor also accepts pasted markdown and converts it on the fly.

Adding more sections

The Add section menu under the section list lets you add more content:

• Intro - if you removed the intro and want it back.
• Article block - a self-contained block with a title, image (with alignment), body and divider. Useful for "what's on this month" style sections, or for content above and below the events list.
• Events, Signoff - put back any default sections you removed.
• Committee file - attach a committee document such as an agenda or minutes.
• Divider - a horizontal divider between sections.
• 2-column row / 3-column row - place sections side-by-side.

Section dividers

Each section has its own Divider after picker (Thin yellow, Thick yellow, Mintcake, Rosycheeks, Thin granite, Dashed grey, or None). The colour you pick is shown in the dropdown so you can see what the email will look like.

Adding a call-to-action button

A call-to-action (CTA) button is a yellow button inside an article block that links to wherever you want recipients to go - a sign-up form, a contact page, the latest blog post, an external booking link, anything.

To add one, scroll to the bottom of any article block and fill in two fields:

• Button text (optional) - the words you want on the button (for example, "Sign me up for Saturday").
• Button URL - the link the button should open. You can paste a full URL or pick a page from your own site.

Once you've filled both fields, the button appears in the email below the block's body text. Leave them empty if the block doesn't need one - the email simply renders without the button.

If you want more than one CTA button (for example, a "book a walk" button and a "see all walks" button), add a second article block with its own button. You can drag the blocks to put them in the order you want.

Step 4 - Events

The events step controls whether (and how) upcoming group events appear inside the email.

There are up to three options here, depending on which entry point you came in from:

• No events - nothing about events appears. This is the default for emails that aren't event-related, such as a notice attached to a committee file.
• Auto-include from date range - events from your calendar matching a date range and a set of filters appear automatically. This is the right choice for a what's-on newsletter.
• Single event - only available when you opened the composer from a specific walk or social event. The single event's details appear, and you can choose how much of it to include.

Auto-include controls

When you pick Auto-include from date range, more controls appear so you can shape the events list:

• Date range input - Slider lets you drag a date range; Individual dates lets you type exact From and To dates.
• Quick range - shortcut presets like Next 14 days or Next 30 days.
• Include information - tickboxes for Description, Location, Contact, Image so you can choose how much detail each event row shows.
• Include event types - tickboxes for Walks, Social events, Committee events.
• The list below shows every matching event, with a tickbox per row, the date and title, distance, contact, postcode, and a description. Select / deselect all at the top toggles them in bulk.

Events you've left ticked are the ones that will appear in the email. The order in the list is the order they'll appear.

Step 5 - Preview & Review

The Preview step shows you exactly what each recipient will receive.

The summary at the top reminds you of the Sending mode (whole list or specific members) and the Recipients (the chosen list or count of selected members).

Beneath that:

• Refresh preview - regenerates the preview with your latest changes.
• The four arrow buttons (<<, <**, **>, >>) page through recipients - first, previous, next and last. The text next to them ("1 of 1 - NGX Chairman") shows which recipient you're previewing.
• The preview itself is the actual email rendered, including banner, greeting, body, events list, sign-off and footer.

Stepping through different recipients is especially useful when you've used merge fields - you can see the {{firstName}} placeholder filled in with each person's name to confirm it looks right.

Step 6 - Send

The final step sends the email.

How sending happens depends on your recipient choice:

• For A whole mailing list, the email is sent as a single campaign through Brevo - one click and Brevo dispatches it to the whole list.
• For Specific members, the email is sent individually to each chosen recipient. A progress bar tracks each send so you can see how far through the batch you are. If a single send fails, you'll see which recipient and why, and you can retry.

Sending happens in the background once you start it. You can leave the page; the system continues. When the run finishes, the email is automatically saved to your Sent list so you can refer back to it or reuse it next time (see Drafts and Reusing Sent Emails).

Before anything goes out, the composer runs a final check - for example, if the subject line is still the email type's default title, a warning appears with a Go and edit button so you can personalise it first (you can still send as-is if you meant it).

If you change your mind at any step before the final Send click, Exit composer at the top right takes you safely back without sending.