What info should I send to people when they email and ask to subscribe to the OREAD?

I sometimes get emails from people who have never done orienteering but who are interested in it and who would like to subscribe to the OREAD. I always put them on the mailing list and I usually write them a personal note.

I'd like to have a standard response that would give them some basic info, let them know they've been added to the OREAD list, and encourage them to come to some events.

What information should I include? Would someone care to draft it (so I can just copy and paste!)?

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), June 20, 2000

Answers

I'll work on one.

I believe a brief description of orienteering would make sense. I think the best is the one that Heather Williams has, but I'm not sure which web site it's on.

Then, I think a local schedule of events.

Also a reference to the discussion page.

Finally asking them which one of us is nearby and setting up a personal contact.

-- Fritz (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), June 22, 2000.

Heather's info is under what is O, under education at the USOF web site.

Oh, and I suppose you could add in the web addresses of the o' games. I like WinOL best, but Lost In the Forest is OK too.

-- Fritz (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), June 22, 2000.

I don't know if it makes sense to have an explanation of what orienteering is. The people who write aren't asking "what is orienteering?" They are usually saying, "hey, I heard about O', I'd like to be put on the mailing list for the newsletter."

I's also like the letter to be generic -- I don't think we should have a schedule because then we'd have to update the email depending on the time of year. Also, they'll have info about upcoming events when they get the OREAD (I usually send them the most recent OREAD and put them on the mailing list for future OREADS).

I think addresses to some key web pages might be good.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 22, 2000.

If someone is writing saying "Hey, I heard about orienteering," the first thing I would want to do is to make sure we are talking about the same thing. Thus I think it's important to have a brief bit on what orienteering is. As far as I could tell from the recent newspaper article, the explanation of what orienteering is was not all that clear.

And while I agree if we are sending out lots of letters, it would be good to have a generic one, I also think it is good to have some up- to-date references, i.e. a list of planned events (from local to national) and local people one could talk further with (or join in on runs, etc.) It might be fun for someone who is interested in o' to join in a simple trail run, which we organize at the last minute. It would not be too hard to make up a simple page with events people are considering going to (in fact, that might be a good idea for a continuing thread ... events people are planning on attending).

Regarding contact information, I'm not sure people would want that posted on a web page, but we could have someone (and I'd be happy to volunteer) offer the information over the phone or in some other manner.

-- Frederick (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), June 23, 2000.