When Members Want To Use the Club Email List

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bout four out of five club executives responding to a PCA email survey in late 2006 said members should not have access to any email list maintained by the club to communicate with other members. In addition, 72.6 percent of the respondents said a club should not promote member discussion (positive or negative) of club matters by email. And, 63.7 percent said a club should not establish an internet chat room as a convenience for members so they can talk about club issues.

A more complete account can be found in the January 2007 issue of the PCA. Complete results of the survey can be seen in the “Surveys” section of this website. Following are comments by some of the respondents.

If you have a written policy regarding use of the club’s email distribution list, would you be willing to share it with us?

• We do not share email addresses from club mailing lists. Our members give the club permission to send them emails before we begin sending them.

• We do not have a written policy. However, we do not provide the email distribution list to members. Members may elect to make that information available to other members on the secure side of our website.

• Due to privacy regulations and laws, no personal contact information is provided to any person for any reason.

• Our email list is considered part of our directory. That clearly states: “The membership list shall be for the exclusive use of the club, its officers and duly constituted committees, and shall not be made available or used by any person, firm or organization for commercial purposes.”

• None of the member roster information (including email addresses) is to be used to solicit other members. In our opinion email chat rooms and such would violate this rule.

• The email distribution list has been provided for the exclusive use of club management for the promotion of club-sponsored activities, events, and pertinent news and official correspondence as approved by the board of directors. Use for personal gain or promotion is strictly prohibited.

• Members have access to individual email addresses through the website. They cannot access the list as a whole for mass email.

• This is in our member directory, which contains the email addresses: “The club member directory contains confidential information. The club does not distribute it to anyone other than club members. It is the club’s intent to protect our privacy. We insist that all members protect the privacy of their fellow members by not making the directory information available to nonmembers and not using the directory for any form of solicitation.”

• The roster or email list shall be used by members only for personal/social use and shall not be used for any other purpose.

• Members are able to display their own email addresses on our online membership roster. The member must “opt in” to display his email address. Otherwise the email address is not displayed. A member can compile all those displayed addresses to send bulk email.

• State law requires that the membership have the right to request a mailing list if it is for club business.

• We have a broader policy regarding privacy and communications. We do not release any information concerning a member. All communications must come from the president, COO or a designated staff member.

• Not to be used for any purpose beyond personal communication.

• No member may use or attempt to obtain any member list for mail or email purposes.

• We allow members access to members’ emails but not the capability without personally typing in all email addresses to “bulk email” the members.

• We do not allow our member email address lists to be distributed to any member for any reason.

• The membership directory, in both written and electronic format including email addresses, is for the personal use of the membership. The release or sale of this directory for any purpose is strictly prohibited. Member use of this directory for business solicitation is also strictly prohibited.

If a member of your club has contacted, or threatened to contact other members by email to encourage opposition to a proposal by club leaders, how did the club respond?

· The club did not provide an email list. The addresses are available and the members could create their own list of addresses.

· It is his or her prerogative to do so, since the club does not give or share email lists.

· We would accept the fact that this could happen. However, there is always as much support as there is opposition. We do not see this as a problem, but rather an advantage to our members.

· We did not respond. Let them contact others.

· The club responded that the member of course may contact any member who has a listed email in the directory on his own.

· The member has a right to contact other members but they have to obtain contact information themselves from the club roster. If you allow them to use the club’s distribution list it is too easy to use, which can lead to abuse.

· Members do email each other to discuss club matters. Once we learn of this happening we encourage the members to speak directly with our general manager via telephone or personal appointment.

· To date this has not happened. If it would, however, the club’s position is not to circulate the membership email roster to anyone. On the other hand, we provide members with a membership directory that has all email addresses within. They could create a list themselves. However, if the board found out that member would be brought before the board.

· We allow them to have their voices heard. Otherwise, they may be able to get an injunction from a judge against the project due to having their due process denied.

· We would not respond because we do not give out email addresses to our members.

· The club has been asked several times to share our email addresses with various members. We respond that some members have asked that we not share their email addresses; and when we broadcast club notices, we insure that the membership addresses are sent as “blind copies.”

· To do so would cause expulsion from the club.

· The club did not give out email addresses, telephone numbers or mailing addresses. Each member receives a roster each year with the information that the other members want to provide. The question of privacy and using the information in a manner not consistent with the members’ wishes must be considered.

· We are facing this issue today. We have a building project up for $16.5 million and some members want their message to be heard by email list. On our website they have the capability of doing this, but not in mass email format. The club has expressed that the use of our email list is for personal communication to other members as our mailing list has been presented to our members. Its purpose is not to flood our members with personal opinions from individual members positive or negative on any issue at the club. The mass email is for the club’s purpose to distribute board actions and club activities.

· A severe warning would be issued to the member.

· All member email addresses, those who want them listed, are in our website for convenient member-to-member communication. We will not email blast from our club or distribute any other roster or list to any member if it is not for official business of the club.

· The club has responded poorly. The board of directors should be much more forceful in dealing with a member who has extended efforts to engage others in a negative public relations campaign against the club and the board.

· This has happened here and the club talked to the member who was emailing, asking him to please convey the facts and not his opinion. This was very destructive to the voting process.

· While the club does not give out its lists, we encourage dialogue within the membership as this is a club for the members.

· Have had the request, which was declined. Advised the member to use his own resources.

· We provide our members with snail-mail address lists as a courtesy, so I do not see why we would not give them email addresses. We have nothing to hide; and after all, this is their club.

· We have a conduct-detrimental-to-the-club clause in our bylaws and we would enforce it!

· We do not provide any list. Every member has in his possession a club directory and also has access to the web page that has a member directory.

· We have no stance as we did not nor do we disseminate that information to the membership.

General responses:

• Our website has a community board, which allows members the opportunity to comment on anything they would like. Comments are encouraged to be of a positive nature and are posted for three weeks. Unfortunately, the discussions are limited to about 15 to 20 members and tend to be an area to vent and create rumors. In theory it is a great idea, but in reality it is something that makes one think elimination of the community board would make more sense.

• Our members love to get mass emails from the club, and 90 percent of our members consent to having their email addresses on our website for use by all members.

• We publish our members’ email addresses in the annual club handbook, although response by members to our annual request for addresses is under 50 percent. Participation is mainly by younger members and one imagines that, like the published home addresses, members envision occasional abuses, or inappropriate uses of the email addresses.

• Currently we post email addresses in our roster for members to contact each other. We treat it the same as the members having access to each other’s telephone numbers.

• If members fear that an email address provided to the club may be used to receive unsolicited emails, they are much less likely to give the club the email address in the first place.

• Membership list by address (labels) or email, etc., only permitted for director candidates during campaigning. Not permitted for any other use. We do publish emails in the club directory (if advised by the member), so one could build his own list.

• Members are given the option of publishing their information in the roster. Email is included, but we also ask if they want the weekly reminders or wish to opt out. All email addresses are blind boxed so no one can see the other addresses in the membership.

• The club should allow opposition to its policy, but providing a mailing list or email list is counterproductive.

• People receive enough emails from the club informing of club events and general information. Letting anyone have access to the database would hurt the good information currently being sent out.

• Our club directory has many email as well as snail mail addresses. If a member wants to contact other members, the addresses are there for him or her. I would not send out a set of mailing labels, so why email addresses? Many members have supplied the club with their email addresses, but asked that they not be published; ditto with snail mail addresses. We are very cautious approaching this subject.

• There are a couple of points to support email access to all members: 1) Most clubs want to know what their members think about certain issues and the only forum available in the past has been meetings at the club, which usually don’t get enough attendance unless it is a large expenditure issue or something of the same magnitude. 2) Our constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech. Why should a club do otherwise? You will get criticism and if you get enough of it, you should probably listen.

• The club’s handbook and member roster are available on our secure, password-protected, members-only site. Each member completes his own contact information form and chooses whether or not to share that profile with other members. The personal contact information of our club members is proprietary. Members are reminded to use it for social purposes only.

• We have used email increasingly for about the last eight years and are now using it as our default method of communication. That is, a member must request to receive correspondence via regular mail. From the beginning we determined that the club must control the flow of information. If a member wishes to develop his own discussion group, he may do so; but the club website is not an “open form.” Our policy, although unwritten, has been in practice since the inception of our website in 1998 and remains unchanged and unchallenged.

• In the past several members wanted mailing labels in order to contact the general membership asking for contributions for a charity. Where this was a good cause, our members were contacted at home, work and through direct mailings. They did not need or want another contact point.

• We may be publishing the members’ email addresses in our proposed website. Each member may opt out of having his email address listed along with other information. It will not be a broadcast list. The member would have to compile his own list as we “bcc” the list and do not list the emails addresses.

• We use email to send monthly statements, to advertise our in-house events, to alert members to weather conditions. We send our newsletter to members via email. We find that members are very receptive to informational emails. We do not use email for any controversial discussions.

• Communications utilizing addresses (email or otherwise) should be limited to social and recreational use only, hence in line with the charter of the club, defining what the club is all about.

• Everybody is tired of emails that come from solicitors or advertisers. If my member email list were made available to the members we would inevitably start having something like this happen and then the members would not enjoy our using it for another means of management and board communication.

• Our club is owned/operated by the homeowners’ association. As such, it must comply with civil codes which now require us to offer to our members an “opt out” form whereby they can specify that we not allow the publication of their names, addresses and other personal information (such as email addresses). Works great!

• The list of email addresses is available to members for use in the transaction of club-related activities between members only with the express consent of the affected member. This is best exemplified in inter- and intra-committee correspondence and notification of specific athletic and social events. Members may choose at their discretion to list their respective email addresses in the club directory.

• Although we encourage members to use the “bulletin board” section of our website to contact each other individually or post issues or ideas they would like feedback on, we do not make our broadcast list accessible to anyone other than the club itself. If members were emailed by other members about club issues or problems, many of them would remove their email addresses from out database in order to avoid such emails.

• We allow our members, on their annual roster update form, to designate whether or not they wish to have their email addresses published in the membership roster. If a member wished to collect email addresses from the printed roster to create an email distribution list, there is no current rule forbidding it. However, there is a rule forbidding the use of the roster information for solicitations.

• Our members have access to all of our members’ email addresses through our online directory. If they choose to create their own files with this list, we have no control. To obtain our mass email files they would have to have administrator access to the website, which would not happen. We do have a disclaimer on our website: “This membership directory is intended for the personal use of our members and is not to be used for solicitation of any kind.” But who is to stop them?

• If one of our members used the list for commercial purposes I would hope our board would deal with that member in the harshest manner. This is their club; let them help to make it a better place.

• In 2007 we will publish members’ email addresses in our annual guidebook/roster for the first time. Members are free to communicate with one another. However, blast emails should be reserved for official use by authorized officers and staff.

• I think it is a slippery slope, and as much as we talk about the importance of communication in clubs, it can backfire with something as powerful as an email listing. The simple fact is that you have no control over what it might be used for, and to what extent a member who receives it might be offended that his privacy has been given away.

• I think a club’s membership may have a profound impact on the topic. The club I manage suffers from many divisions in the membership, promulgated by a non-selective membership process being in place for many years. If a club did not have this problem, I would be more supporting of this type of access and communication.