"Kiwanis Update" Launched
by Governor-Elect Jeffrey Wolff
This month we launched a new form of communication in the Capital District. The Kiwanis Update is an HTML-email based publication that will go out once a month and highlight important issues for all members of our District. The unique aspect of this communication is that it is the first time we are sending e-mail directly to club members. In the past, all e-mail based communication was sent to the club presidents and secretaries and then they were expected to pass the information on to their membership.
As a result of Kiwanis International now allowing the districts to download the contact information (including e-mail addresses) of their members, we are able to do these monthly update messages directly to all Capital District Kiwanis members who have an email address on file. The first issue, viewable here http://bit.ly/ifwNBY has information on Club Leadership Education, 2011-12 District Committees and the 2011 Kiwanis International Convention in Geneva, Switzerland.
In case you are curious about the statistics, there are roughly 6,375 Kiwanis members in our district. Of those, only 4,309 (68%) members have e-mail addresses on file with Kiwanis International. The email was sent on January 27 and as of the writing of this article so far, 975 people (22.6%) have opened the message, 114 people (2.6%) have clicked on at least one link in the email message, 887 (20.6%) of the emails have bounced back meaning those addresses are not valid and only 14 people (0.3%) have requested to be unsubscribed. More people will open the message as the days go by, but we've already reached more people with this message than any single e-mail update sent in the past.
To be sure that you receive future issues of Kiwanis Update, please make sure that your club secretary has your correct email address. This information is reported by the clubs to Kiwanis International. We will update our list of members e-mail addresses once every quarter so that hopefully with each subsequent issue we can reach more and more of our members. If you have any suggestions for future issues, please send them to me at jeffrey@wolff.net.
