New Member Welcome message

Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:06 pm

Out of curiosity does anyone from the board or general membership send a PM to the new members?

Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:32 pm

No, but I agree this is a good idea.

zuma

Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:50 pm

I noticed the number of new registered users growing daily. Rarely does a new member introduce themselves in the forum (I know I never did). The forum seems to be the best place to get information about events. If the new members don't know this they might be missing out on events or volunteering. Just a thought. I don't mean to make more work for the board.

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 7:13 am

nohandsgps wrote:

I noticed the number of new registered users growing daily. Rarely does a new member introduce themselves in the forum (I know I never did). The forum seems to be the best place to get information about events. If the new members don't know this they might be missing out on events or volunteering. Just a thought. I don't mean to make more work for the board.

I think you have a great idea here, and it is one that would not necessarily increase the work of the board, especially if one of our fine members volunteered to head up the "Welcome Wagon" for new members.

Are you volunteering for this duty? If so, you and I and the BOD can develop a policy for welcoming new members, and turn over the welcoming duties either to you or another one or two of our fine members.

zuma

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 7:46 am

An automatically generated welcome message would not be as personal but would work to make us more inviting at the very least.

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 8:43 am

zuma wrote:

Are you volunteering for this duty? If so, you and I and the BOD can develop a policy for welcoming new members, and turn over the welcoming duties either to you or another one or two of our fine members.

zuma

If we don't automate the message I could send a one.

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:51 am

Perhaps an automated message but it is "signed by" the "welcome committee" with contact info and whatnot?

That way it's automated, but if they reply it will go to someone who volunteers to field those beginner type questions.

Just a thought...

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:46 am

Lostby7 wrote:

An automatically generated welcome message would not be as personal but would work to make us more inviting at the very least.

I thought about automatically popping a private message into the inbox of all new members. But I wasn't sure how well an automated "form letter" would be received. Sounds like most people think this would be OK and would not turn people away?

We could make the message appear to be from anyone, even subdivide the state into regions so that the automated welcome messages would come from a local geocacher.

I will propose that the Board do this and come up with a form letter to be used for it...

Another thing we could do is send the latest copy of the email newsletter out to folks when they first join so they are up to date on important WGA happenings.

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:15 pm

The whole idea is great, and I don't see a problem with an automated letter going out. After all people are participating in a techy sport, I would assume they can handle the automation of a letter. In fact when I sign up for something online, I anticipate getting such an email.

nohandsgps wrote:

The forum seems to be the best place to get information about events. If the new members don't know this they might be missing out on events or volunteering. Just a thought.

... ONE THE ABOVE QUOTE ... While there is no harm in this thought ... I would think that someone that has bothered to sign up on the WGA website to start with, would have already "snooped" enough to know what we have to offer. So maybe this means that an automated letter should always be kept very current (ie. list the next 5 events and maybe a handful of "important stuff" currently happening ... thus using the "Welcome" email as a tool to help stuff "float to the top of the heap". I think the biggest "barrier" to a new member would be that they are presented with a billion UNread forum topics ... they could use a helping hand at focusing on stuff that is more applicable to a newbie and/or the next few weeks to come.

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:59 pm

EnergySaver wrote:

I think the biggest "barrier" to a new member would be that they are presented with a billion Unread forum topics ... they could use a helping hand at focusing on stuff that is more applicable to a newbie and/or the next few weeks to come.

I used the "mark all as read" link in each section so I could see only current posts. By doing that I could easily see new posts. I never would have been able to read through all the topics. Maybe we could suggest they introduce themselves in the forum.