Key to Harmony Blog

November 2019 KTH MEETING MINUTES

Members Participating
1.   Adrienne - yes
2.   Arlene -
3.   Barb - yes
4.   BJ - yes
5.   Buddy - yes
6..  Cathy - yes
7.   Darlene - yes
8.   Kate - yes
9   Joyce- yes

10. Pat - yes 11. Rose - yes 12. Shelley - yes 13. Sophie - yes

REPORTS 1. AlternateChair (Buddy)

2. BusinessChair (BJ)):

3. CALCordinator (Rose) :

4. Gentle Reminder Coordinator: (open)

5. Meeting Coordinator (Barb) :

6. Secretary/Archivist (Joyce):. The October 2019 KTH MEETING MINUTES have been posted to the web blog. Joyce

7. SponsorCoordinator (Sophie : Hi all, My report has been posted : https://keytoharmony.org/files/index.php?post/report-from-sponsorship-coordinator3 In service, Sophie

8. StatesideTreasurer (Shelley) : No activity in September October Opening Balance. 376.34 Deposits up to November 4. 34.84 Balance as of 11/15/19. 411.18 Regards, Shelley

9. Treasurer(Kate)

10. Webmaster (Buddy) : The October 2019 Activity Report has been posted to the Key blog: https://keytoharmony.org/files/index.php?post/October-2019-Activity-Report Buddy

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

A. From July - Cosignatories on Treasurer Accounts: decided and awaiting finalization Rose now co-signatory on Australian account as of 11/2019 Awaiting co- signatory on Stateside account

B. From July - Obtaining a TIN (tax identification number for stateside bank account. - KeyBiz Member working on this has resigned . Treasurer indicates no TIN needed on Australian Account 11/2019 . Shelley previously indicated a TIN was needed on Stateside Account.

C. From August : Donation to WSO. Treasurer suggested $200 (Australian dollars) donation to WSO. Needing to delay further discussion/donation until change in Australian cosignatory resolved ( now resolved 12/2019) and information re how to transfer electronically obtained.

NEW BUSINESS

 Gentle Reminder Committee -

A1. New Chair needed (committee to appoint) and new chair to update member list and rotation schedule

B. Bank information B1. Australian bank information : Bendigo Bank BSB 633000 Acc132832924    B2. Awaiting stateside bank information

C. Observations re KTH Website

C1. This is not a report, but some observations about Key to Harmony's flow of new members.

After we moved to Gaggle and new members had to sign up via the Join form on the website, I began to see a pattern: many of our new members would unsubscribe the next day or soon thereafter. We had a steady flow of newcomers, but many of them - I would say a majority - would leave almost immediately.

I was able to determine why some were leaving so quickly:

-- Some didn't realize that Key to Harmony was an Al-Anon meeting.

-- Some didn't realize the meeting was conducted via email. They thought it was an actual meeting - either face-to-face or live chat.

-- Some thought we were going to provide them with the "Key to Harmony" in their marriages or relationships. :-)  They did not have family members with a problem of alcoholism, they just had bad relationships.

(NOTE: I do think our name attracts new members. For example, Awakenings AFG has exactly the same set up as Key to Harmony - website, join form, optimization, etc. - but we get 10 times the new subscribers.)

To try to cut down on these kinds of drive-by subscribers, a few months ago, I added a description to the How to Join page. You can see it here. https://key2harmony.org/join.html

It simply says Key is an Al-Anon meeting and it's conducted via email. That description had an immediate effect. Our flow of new members dropped drastically, but so did our immediate unsubscribes. Where we were getting maybe 10 new members a week (these are estimated numbers) we dropped to maybe 1-3 per week.

For example, last week we had only 2 new members join. The week before than we had only 2 join.

But now it's Thanksgiving week, the beginning of the "holiday season" - the season in which Al-Anon as a whole sees an influx of newcomers. It begins each year with Thanksgiving week, gathering momentum through Christmas and then peaking during New Year's through Super Bowl Sunday.

After having 4 new members join in the past two weeks, we have had 4 join in the last 18 hours.

'Tis the Season...

Buddy Key Tech Team

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS change in GR schedule annual permission to quote one paragraph of CAL quarterly appeal letter received member resignation Question/answer about sponsorship - WEBEx meeting Sponsor list Chair schedule status