[Ldsoss] Ward Website Email Broadcasting

[Jesse Stay]

I'm curious how involved your Ward leadership is in promoting the Ward
Website?  I had one Ward that seemed to grasp it better than others,
and it happened when all the Leaders started using it and making it as
one of the primary means for members to get information.  The members
were forced to get accounts (due to that being one of the easiest ways
to get the info), and as they got used to using it they became more
and more enthusiastic about it.

Jesse

On 12/17/06, James Nickerson <jin3 at cs.byu.edu> wrote:
> On Friday 15 December 2006 10:35, Mary Shaw grooved on as follows:
> > One thing to keep in mind is that once an account is created, it stays with
> > that member through all the wards.  Since I created my stake & ward web
> > site account, I've moved twice and been in one ward reorganization.  I love
> > knowing my online registration is linked to my membership record.
> >
> > My point is- account creation is a temporary problem.  Once every ward
> > member has created their account, they will not need to re-create it.  I
> > expect online registration will eventually become a routine part of
> > baptizing/fellowshipping new members.
>
> Yeah, and that has the potential to be really great, if people would ever
> create accounts.  The difficulty of acquiring membership information has been
> cited several times through the course of this thread, and that's certainly a
> factor...
>
> Of course, recently our membership clerk printed off a letter to every member
> of the ward with their membership # and confirmation date, and also clear,
> detailed instructions on signing up for lds.org, and passed those letters out
> to pretty much everyone -- and still very few people signed up.  And I'm in a
> university singles' ward, which is probably about as tech-savvy/comfortable
> online as it gets.  We've encouraged the Elders Quorum members over and over
> to sign up for it, but instead they seem to prefer calling me for peoples'
> phone #s, when they have a computer with internet access right in front of
> them.  I get called at work for #s all the time, and of course all I'm doing
> is logging onto lds.org to get them, myself.  I really don't understand why
> people are so lacking in enthusiasm for such a convenient tool to enhance
> their participation in an organization that has a greater effect on the
> course of their lives than any other.  Especially in a SINGLES STAKE, where
> there is GREAT MOTIVATION TO HAVE EASY ACCESS TO CONTACT INFO!  It doesn't
> give me a lot of hope for the online presence of the church at large.
>
>
> > That said, I'll tell you that e-mails are not sent by secure.lds.org in my
> > ward (Falcon Ward, Colorado Springs East Stake).  I overheard someone say
> > that is because it is "hit and miss" - because not everyone has an account,
> > they cannot be sure the e-mail is sent to everyone.  They prefer to manage
> > their list of e-mails independently of the web site.
>
> Yeah, this could be solved by letting the clerk enter in peoples' email
> addresses, just like he can their physical addresses and phone #s.  Because
> he can't, we're stuck using the classic forbidden Yahoo Group approach, which
> has all sorts of problems in addition to bringing perdition down upon us all
> (because you can get peoples' email addresses from them at church, but you
> can't get them to sign up for lds.org and enter it in themselves).
>
> James
>
> > On 12/15/06, Greg Hart <greg at queezy.com> wrote:
> > > As previously mentioned, the two biggest factors in my ward that cause
> > > ward leaders to dismiss the usefulness of the ward website are 1) Lack of
> > > support in MLS and the Ward Websites for *personal* phone numbers (cell,
> > > work, etc..) and 2) Lack of user-friendly email lists.
> > >
> > > Regarding Email Broadcasting:  First, share email addresses between MLS
> > > and the Ward Website.  It's a real problem that they're not synced
> > > crrently.  Second, allow web admins the ability to subscribe/unsubscribe
> > > users from ward email lists. Third, allow ward leaders listed on the
> > > Leadership Directory (non-web admins) unmoderated posting rights to the
> > > email list.  These would break down some major barriers.
> > >
> > > After that I would list the difficulty members have of registering.
> > >
> > > > 3) Could a member ask the clerk to send an 'invitation' to subscribe to
> > >
> > > a
> > >
> > > > member's personal e-mail account?  This could then be authenticated by
> > >
> > > the
> > >
> > > > user via their personal e-mail -- kind of like subscribing to the
> > > > LDSOSS and other news lists.
> > >
> > > This is the solution I support the most.  It is essentially what my ward
> > > does right now, albeit a custom perl script that parses Membership.csv
> > > (exported from MLS), and email's the members their digits accompanied by
> > > some simple instructions.  Just imagine if the clerk could enter a new
> > > member's email address in MLS, subscribe him immediately to the ward
> > > email list, see if the member is registered on the Ward Website, and if
> > > not, click "Invite to Ward Website" which sends a helpful email with very
> > > simple instructions.  How easy.
> > >
> > > more of my 2 bits.
> > >
> > > -Greg
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
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