Town emails

Posted on: March 6th, 2017

Just a reminder – please contact me if you have news for the town that you want to go out for everyone. Rarely will I put out info on my own – I would like people to send me written out news to post.  It’s a somewhat complicated process to post in the website, which then sends out a digest, which I can then copy and paste into an email.  I do usually proof them for typos, etc., but I don’t want to have compose them as well.  I would not send out something personal or that may be private like an obituary unless requested to by a family member.  

There are some protocols that Jenny Rice gave me when the town website and emails became my job a number of years ago, which I generally follow. If there is a consensus that these need to be changed or amended, we can discuss it at a Town Meeting.

Here are the types of messages she thought were appropriate to send out

Town/school events (cleanup, town meetings, Fall Fiesta, etc.).  I recommend sending an initial email a couple of weeks before the event and then a reminder a few days before.  Sometimes you’ll need to be the forward -looking one to make sure the info gets out on time.  For example, you know the school will probably have a fall fiesta, and you know it’s typically in late October, so you should contact someone at the school to get the details a few weeks before then.    (P.S. I can’t always be relied on to do this!  Please contact me!)
  1. Other, non-profit, non-partisan events put on in our community (e.g., silent auction to support someone’s medical expenses).
  2. Information about county meetings or initiatives of potential general interest (e.g., county sort yards, Climate Smart Loan program, etc.).
  3. Information about GHTM committee projects (e.g., CWPP, beetles, weeds, calendar, etc.)
  4. Community issues that have come up that 1) are or should be of broad concern or interest (e.g., bears breaking into cars, mountain lions eating pets and 2) are issues that people can take action on and you can help provide them with the resources/links to get more information.  Make sure that if there are multiple sides to a community issue that you present all sides in the email (e.g., county purchase of land near Snowbound created two camps of opposing property owners).
Messages that she didn’t think are appropriate to send out:
  1. Anything of a political/partisan nature.  Telling people where to go to register to vote or how to find out their polling place is not political or partisan and is OK to send out.
  2. Anything promoting someone’s for-profit business (this can go in the business listings on the website).
  3. Anything that is the type of email that people send around to their friends (jokes, weird photos, etc.)
  4. Information that may be interesting but really is not necessary or that anyone can find  if they want it and that does not help us address any current issue in the town.  If we start sending non-essential info, the town list quickly becomes its own mild form of spam. 
  5. Sometimes people will try to send email directly to the list.  You will get an email notifying you that a message awaits authorization.  Typically these emails are not appropriate to send out, but you should read them and contact the sender to discuss.

Check out the website goldhilltown.com.  There is lots of information there of general interest.