As the newsletter editor, I want to highlight DG Elaine’s activity, share our goals and your reactions to this newsletter.
During July DG Elaine visited ten District 5550 Rotary clubs. She began with the three clubs in Northwestern Ontario as she and her PDG husband Ed returned from their visit to the RI 2018 convention. The seven other clubs were all in Manitoba. With socials and travel added, an average of 2.5 clubs per week leaves little personal time.
This month's other stories focus on the success and future opportunities of Rotary Friendship Exchanges and an opportunity to watch our Rotary President Barry Rassin "be the inspiration" for us to increase our Club's membership.
Our July newsletter was generally well received. Our goal is to use a mix of media presentations. Video, PowerPoints, infographics, and photos in this era must supplement the text. We want to limit the newsletter to just four topics such as Elaine’s report, a club story, a District initiative and an RI big picture event.
We also want to inspire all members to at least open the e-mail and at a minimum glance at the topics for the month. As the graphic shows, only 44% or 621 of 1401 members even bothered to OPEN the e-mail.
Our goal for this issue is 50% or more. We did get reports from three active Rotarians who claim not to have received the newsletter notice, but ClubRunner’s records show the messages opened in all three cases.
We also got one very irate complaint about YouTube’s Autoplay feature. We agree it is annoying in the extreme. The answer is complicated. The August 1, 2018 issue of the New York Times dealt with the issue under the title Autoplay Videos Are Not Going Away. Here’s How to Fight Them. Good luck.!
Speaking of videos the interview with Elaine about her goals and aspirations for the year has been viewed 187 times. That is about 30% of those who opened the newsletter.
Thanks for opening the newsletter or you wouldn’t be reading this.
John Borst