Bozeman Area Environmental Groups
The NEW BOZONE ORGS list is live at bozone-orgs.com. Please go there to subscribe. You will be able to choose your username and options like 'digest mode'. Or you can send an email to subscribe@bozone-orgs.com
Events, news, and other issues of interest to people involved with Bozeman area conservation organizations.
You can subscribe or unsubscribe from the list using the links on the left. If you'd like to browse through the list archives, you'll need to use the login link at the top right. For first time users, you can have your password sent to you from the login form.
Subscribers can post messages to the list by addressing an email to the address at the top left.
Do you have Questions like?:
What is the focus of the bozone-orgs email list, and what kinds of messages are appropriate?
How many people are subscribed to the list? Which organizations are represented?
Who can post (i.e. - send an email that gets to everyone's inbox) to the list?
What is the moderation process?
Bozone Orgs is a community email list serve centered around the individuals and organizations working to promote environmental health in Bozeman and the surrounding region. Individual email addresses are subscribed to this list. You might work directly as an activist, educator, or researcher on environmental issues; or perhaps you are tangentially involved as a volunteer, agency personnel, board member; or have some other deep involvement with clean air, healthy wildlife, fresh water, wild lands, or human powered recreation in the region. There are now about 300 subscribers, representing groups listed in the alphabet soup below; and this is an incomplete list, so don't be offended if your group is not here. I pasted the list of groups at the bottom of this email, it was getting so long!
What messages are appropriate? Hmm, good question. Only two hard and fast rules:
- No Political Candidate emails. Many folks on this list work for 501(c)3 s, and get this email at their place of work. Having emails which espouse one or another candidate put them, or their org, in a bad spot.
- No fundraising appeals- All of our organizations need money, especially in these tight economic times. But if we are all just hitting each other up for money, that doesn't really work. In the case of, for example, events with a fee, it gets a little tricky. If the fee mainly offsets the cost of the event, that's cool- it is OK to be posted. But if the event is your orgs $2000/plate fundraiser, this listserv is not the place to spread the word.
So those are the rules, but what are the GUIDELINES? Is it OK to advertise a house for rent, or a car for sale? In general, Yes! If the house, or the car, is in line with the values of the folks on this list. So DON'T advertise your McMansion for rent; or your car that gets 8 miles to the gallon.
Those examples ( the efficient car for sale, the cozy house for rent) are appropriate because they are related to the environment, even if distantly. It is important that emails to this listserv have a subject that is related in some way to the environment.
Almost any posts by individuals (car for sale, room for rent) are acceptable, because we are a community of individuals; posts on behalf of organizations (here's our event) are held to a higher standard-they should relate in some way to environmental issues around SW Montana.
Commercial Posts are unfortunately growing in volume and declining in quality. Bozone-orgs is not a marketing channel, we are your friends and neighbors. Please do not send us repeated reminds of your services or products or regular commercial events. And see below about Bulk Email services. So what's the line between acceptable commercial posts and not? Good question, the Farmer's Market is a regular commercial event, can they not post a reminder? I am not going to try to draw a line in this gray area, I leave it to the judgement of the poster to determine the appropriateness, keeping in mind the mantra of the list:
Respect the Inbox
What I have tried to instill in my extremely occasional posts is the understanding- hey, you can post lots of stuff, probably marginal, but people will get tired of your crap. You are filling up inboxes trying to give away cardboard boxes. You are selling the services of your sole-proprietorship business, with every new cycle of classes or seminars or whatnot; we are not a marketing channel, we are your community.
Everybody who posts excessively in such a way will be judged by the rest of us, the community. It's not anonymous, it's lot's of people who know you. If your tone is too shrill, or your your subject matter too trivial, or you cry "wolf" too much, everybody knows.
Digest Format - One email daily
If the shear volume of emails on the bozone-orgs list is overwhelming, you may want to switch to once-daily Digest format.
To do this, you have to login to npogroups.org and set your preferences there. In order to do that, you will need to click either of the 'First Login?' or 'Renew Password?' links in the upper left of any page on npogroups.org ( this website ... look for it now).
Once you get all logged in, click on Subscriber Options in the left sidebar. One of the options on this page is 'Reception Mode' : normal, but you want to change it to 'digest' or 'rich digest'. Click Update.
Bulk Email services (Constant Contact, Emma, Mailchimp, etc)
Please do not subscribe bozone-orgs@npogroups.org to your groups email distribution list (like Constant Contact or Emma or MailChimp ). I call that "Double Bulk" email messages. The bozone-orgs email address will be unsubscribed from any bulk email list that it is subscribed to (Anyone on the list can do this- just look for the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of any bulk message).
Please do not forward the email that you get from your groups Constant Contact or similar service. It contains that pre-coded "unsubscribe" link at the bottom, and somebody else could unsubscribe you from your own email list!
Instead, cut and paste the body of the email into a fresh email message, and address that to bozone-orgs@npogroups.org
If you are a new group in town, of course, please send us your new email newsletter! And encourage interested list members to join your list directly.
So, for a staff person at an organization to send an email to the entire list- "Noted author to speak about travels to Beijing" - that is not acceptable, because there is nothing related to the environment, or SW Montana. By contrast, for an individual to post to the list-"My friend, an environmental activist from Beijing, needs a place to stay for a couple months, while he's here" -- that is totally fine. I should add- something like "event date check- is anyone else doing something on Mar 12?"- is totally fine as well.
These guidelines are intended to keep the list focused, and not become a hodgepodge.
I should emphasize here the difference between subscribers and email messages. Many organizations and companies (which might have little to do with environmental health) have staff who are subscribed to this list, and they are welcome here.
I hope that this helps clarify what is a good email message to the bozone-orgs, and what is not. The bozone-orgs began as a list of staff, board and supporters from environmental orgs, and I think it is important to maintain that focus. While it is tempting to expand the tent to include ALL non-profits in the area, I feel it is wisest to stick with the original focus of the subject:environment; and region: SW Montana.
The Moderation Process - Moderation is the process by which emails sent TO the main email address of the list, DO eventually get sent to the subscribers. For now, here are two cases:
- You are already a subscriber to the email list: if you are getting this message, this is you, unless the email was forwarded from someone you know. Your email gets sent, automatically, instantly, to everyone of the 300 or so subscribers to this email list!
- You are not yet a subscriber to this list: If a message comes from an email address not on the list, it will be held until I (or another administrator of the list), approves it to be sent to everyone. I get an email saying, basically "hey, some random person just sent this email to the bozone-orgs list ... is it ok?"- with options to approve or deny the message. This cuts down on the spam that the group receives ; but can also lead to delays in the distribution of some messages.
Any questions? Please feel free to contact me!
Thanks,
Jim Earl
jimurl@montanaice.com
An incomplete list of Organizations with staff/board/supporters on this listserv:
TPL
WCS
Teton Science School
The Sonoran Institute
The Wilderness Society
WWF
Trout Unlimited
Headwaters Economics
Montana Conservation Voters
Park Co. Environmental Council
GYC
Yellowstone Park Foundation
CERI
NPCA
Earth Justice
Sierra Club
LightHawk
Montana Conservation Corp.
Gallatin Valley Land Trust
TNC
... and many more