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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 11:28 AM
I'm curious as to how we are doing compared with other class websites. Our class of 1962 has 55.5% membership out of a class size of 128. I realize that our "age group" is significant because we have a number who don't use computers. We have sent out two waves of postcards since creating the site in April 2010, and have identified addresses for all but a handful, so people are either choosing not to join, have no computer access, or the postcards are not reaching the right people. Is there a way to see how well other sites in the same graduating year range are doing? What else are people doing to encourage membership without overstepping the harassment boundary? I'm tempted just to be happy with what we've got.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 11:44 AM - Response #1
I am Class of 1960. Because of all the reasons you mentioned (mostly, no computer or just refuse to use one), I frankly never expected to hit 50% for our class of 82 people. The Reunion generated a lot of interest, mostly before, but several after the Reunion. We recently hit 56%, and I am very happy with that. However, I keep plugging away for that elusive 60%, as I know at least 3 or 4 have email addresses, just haven't gotten them to give them to me.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 11:46 AM - Response #2
My class graduated in 1969. I tried as hard as I could without spending money on a mailing to grow our membership. Every email blast sent included a reminder to find classmates who hadn't joined. We were a class of a little over 700 and have a 51% membership. I wanted a higher number but I've settled and have no problem with it now. I agree with you about being happy with what I've got. I know the 51% are extremely happy with the site so I'm ok. Happy New Year.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 11:49 AM - Response #3
Carolyn: These are hard questions to answer because every class is so different. I have a class of over 650 (those who didn't walk, got married, etc. etc. probably brings it up to 700). We are sending out our first postcard which literally goes to everyone--those we don't have emails for--in January. That will tell the tale. For "word of mouth" and Facebook, Linked In etc. we have 32% at this time. I think it's fabulous! We have only 70 people truly missing (and some of them WILL turn up) so now it's in their court. Pretty much everyone uses computers, but I get the "I use them all day at work and don't want to look at them when I get home". I think that will change according to dates leading up to the reunion. Our class had a large military component. Although some LOVE hearing from us, others consider Fairborn a blip on the map of their life. It just is not important. On the other hand I have heard from people who lived here say five years, and did not actually graduate, but had many friends and considered it a BIG blip on the map. I think you are doing well for your age and size. You just can't compare your situation to mine. If I have 60% on the site by the reunion in August, I will be DELIGHTED!!!!! And as interest develops, more will join later just to see the pictures, because I WILL password protect them !!!! Keep up your work. There is a point of harassment. We were all raised with good common sense and if we just use that I think we'll be good! Denise
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 11:49 AM - Response #4
I'd say you are doing very well. The participation numbers seem to be all over the map. I've seen some sites with 100% and some with very few. Some classes were small and close others very large. Our site has been up for 2yrs and we have aprox 25% participation out of a class of 800. I'd like to see that much higher. But some, as you mention, simply don't use a computer and others don't want any contact at all and some are very active. Have fun with it in the new year !
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 11:58 AM - Response #5
I forgot, one thing that did help me get some classmates involved. I emphasize that a trusted relative could help those that can't access a computer. I got at least 3 o 4 that went with that (56 classmates out of 82). We just register them in their Profile something like George Jones (via my sister Peggy). That works really well for several, and not just reasons of no access or capability to use computer. Some that are very sick love to have the link through their sibling, daughter/son, or whomever (grandkids are great!!). Other than that, I also would say hitting 50% is really good. I am kind of surprised someone with a later (younger) class mentioned that some won't use computer at home because on all day at work. However, I can certainly understand that.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 12:05 PM - Response #6
Hi Carolyn, Our demographics are not that different from yours... Class of 1961, 205 classmates, joined CC about a month after you. We are at 57% active classmates. There are those, especially who never left our home town, who never show up at reunions and continue to avoid connecting on the site. One can only speculate what is going on. As we delve into it others are very uncomfortable just using a computer and with all the scare stories around are worried about putting personal information on the web... everything from getting more spam to having their bank accounts wiped out. Some have their spouses (or their children/grandchildren) help them get on-line. Others may not have had a positive experience in high school and just want to keep it behind them. Still others have significant things going on in their lives (one couple is dealing with 4 aging, ill, parents, some with dementia) and this just isn't on the radar for them right now. One is even rumored to be in the witness protection program! One thing we inadvertently did to boost participation about two months ago was to decide we wanted to verify the phone numbers we had for those who had not signed up. Eight of us created a phone tree and each called 8-10 of our classmates stating we just wanted to make sure we had the right contact number as our 50th reunion was coming up (this September) and we wanted to make sure everyone had all the latest information. I think we got somewhere around 10 more site signups as a result. The personal one-on-one touch was just the difference that was needed to make it happen. Hope this is of some help. On an entirely different note, I see that your site has sub-navigation selections behind the left-hand navigation links. I like it! Are you on the cutting edge roll out of the new CC system or have you creatively used the tools we already have at our disposal? Regards, Jim
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 12:14 PM - Response #7
I agree with everyone. You are doing quite well. We are the class of 1966 with 240 still living. We are missing about 60 email addresses yet only 107 classmates have done profiles. We started the site in September and our next reunion will be Labor Day Weekend. We only did one mailing. Since then we have used whitepages.com and zabasearch.com to find people then we have a small committee that follows up with phone calls to get the missing email addresses. We only have 8 actual missing people. I think we have all of the low-hanging fruit. Initially when we sent an email from the site 10 or so would sign up each time but now that is down to a trickle. But once we get closer to the actual reunion and invitation goes out I think it will pick up. If we had 140 of our 240 I think we would be happy. Some people just don't care. Of our 43% on the site they have sent over 300 messages to each other so that right there shows that our core group are very happy with the site. I get all kinds of thank-you's. We have a classmate battling cancer and I sent out a message and link to his CaringBridge site and the number of people that have signed his guestbook and sent him messages because we were able to communicate this is heartwarming. Some people just didn't like high school as much as others. keep up the good work! You are doing great! And yes, the older the class the less computer savvy so that definitely plays into it.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 12:39 PM - Response #8
Your numbers seem to be in line with most. Another class from our school [1968] has 252 active [45.6%] and 301 inactive. Both classes have 53 classmates who are deceased.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 1:12 PM - Response #9
Jim, my head honcho administrator did those sub-navigation links and I am not even sure how he did them. So I guess he is the one on the cutting edge, not me. I am anxious to see what the new CC changes are, and hope there is a way for us to easily migrate to the new sub-menus from our current system. I sure don't want to have to recreate the wheel. I like your phone tree idea, but I don't have phone numbers, just physical addresses, for the classmates who haven't joined. Did you provide the phone numbers to your phone tree volunteers?
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 1:30 PM - Response #10
On our largest site we have: Percentage Of
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 1:35 PM - Response #11
Carolyn, We all seem to hover around the same range of participation. Our class of 1962 has 136 active our of 237. One thing the research group did was to set "accounted for" as the overall goal and are shooting for 80%. Thus, when you factor the active registered and known deceased into the picture you get a slightly higher rate of success. Yes, it is an illusion, but what we're trying to do is to bring down the number of absolutely-no-clue-missing classmates which we've affectionately called the Deep Cover group. Interestingly, most of these same names were on the unknown address list for the 10th and 25th reunions as well. This leaves us with another category we refer to as Twilight Zone group--those we sent inquiries to, but for various reasons, have yet to respond. As you can see, we've made kind of a game of it and hope with the help of some persistent cajoling and yet to be exercised fee-based search tools, we'll be able to close the gap a bit more by this time next year. Bob
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 2:05 PM - Response #12
Carolyn, For the most part we had the phone numbers already. We'd been maintaining an Excel list of physical addresses, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers for many years prior to our joining CC. In a few instances where we thought we had phone numbers they were wrong and we used White Pages or similar to see if we could get the updated ones. There's another site, PIPL (http://pipl.com/), you might also look into as they claim to do a more thorough, "deep" search on the internet, going into PDF files and similar to establish a more comprehensive database on people. However, even that is limited so don't get your hopes up too high. I now see how your "head honcho" administrator did it and it has given me an idea on how to solve a (technical/presentation) problem on one of our pages. Please thank him/her for me for the insight.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 3:00 PM - Response #13
We are at an amazing 70%! I think your numbers are great. Frankly, I hadn't checked for a while, so I was pleased when I looked up numbers.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 3:22 PM - Response #14
Our class of 1964 was small...65 classmates and we've lost 14% of the class. We have a 72% profile rate and about 80% sign on at least once a month. The web site has been up 1-1/2 years and 1249 emails have been exchanged (probably birthday and holiday greetings and responses to profiles) Since we were so small, everyone knew everyone else and we considered ourselves a family. But even here, there are some folks who have never signed on (the reasons sited by everyone else and a few don't appear to want to be involved). However, it's always exciting when a New Profile is submitted.
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 3:53 PM - Response #15
Carolyn, class of 1960 has 67% active, we have 73 active and 36 inactive, 16 deceased, two since our 50th reunion in August. We have been online since Sept of 09 and I just looked and we are at 8,550 hits in that timeframe. I have been called "persistant" by some of my classmates but for the most part they seem to be very grateful for the site. I recently put it out there about renewal, had about a dozen comments for keeping, and the committee voted for a 3 year renewal. I have to say I've had the help of other classmates that are as interested in keeping it going as I am. Some have made personal phone calls when we locate someone and we have located some that have been missing for 50 years. I put out a periodical blast to the class and always generates interest. I do believe since it was our 50th last summer was one reason for the huge interest, and it was also the best and largest turn-out we ever had. good luck and sounds like your numbers are not bad at all. I have some classmates that don't even have a computer ....
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 4:20 PM - Response #16
It has been an up and down battle to try and find classmates and then get them on the site. We had 285 in our class. I have about 140 on the site and about 50 that don't do email or computer who I have addresses and phone numbers for. I am missing about 70 and we have been really working on trying to find them. Very hard, particularly the woman who have changed their names. We just had our 45th reunion. I was kinda disappointed in the attending numbers. We only had 50 from our class and 15 and 15 from the class above and the class below. We had a great time, but for all the work , I have to say I was a little disappointed. We have 4 years until our 50th reunion and I am hoping for better. We need to find the 70 and work on getting people to the reunion. But I have to say this site is the greatest. I love the help I get and everyone enjoys visiting their site. Thank you
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Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 9:53 PM - Response #17
My class of 1962 had 228 members. 38 are deceased and 27 are on the "unknown" list. Of the remaining 163, 103 have joined the site, which went live in March of 2010. We have done two mailouts to those for whom we have no email address, and received only one response -- she said she had no fond memories of High School and requested that we not bother her again. I am still hoping we will have at least 125 by the time our 50th rolls around, but that may be unrealistic. There are about 15 others that we have email addresses for and some of them say they have visited the site and think it is nice, but they haven't registered. I consider it their loss because the rest of us are having a blast with the site -- thanks Class Creator!! . . .Sandy
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Sunday, January 2, 2011 at 11:47 AM - Response #18
Our class is at 34% after almost two years. We did get an additional 10 to 12% more during our reunion process, but our goal was 50% and we're not there. We had about 800 in our class. We have people on Classmates.com and Facebook who have yet to sign up on the class site - boo.
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Sunday, January 2, 2011 at 2:03 PM - Response #19
We're doing fairly well with our numbers. In our 1959 class of almost 700, we have found all of them except for 32 classmates. Home Page Visitor: 34421 since we opened the site just two years ago. Here are our other stats:
A: 382 Active A: 190 Photos 94 of our classmates have passed on. Ken
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Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 2:18 PM - Response #20
I have a multi-year site which includes the Classes of 54,65 & 66. There are 1707 names in the database, the include grads, people who moved away and would have graduated,dropouts, and a few guests. We have about a 19.1% participation. 326 active. 85 deceased. We were hoping for more!!! We have found a lot of people that have not joined the site. We are trying to get them to come over from that other site 'classmates'. You just can't lead a old horse to water. We have tried. For those of you that have FB pages for your school..How is it working for you??? I am thinking about putting a page on FB. Not sure how to set it up..and how much good it would really do to get people to join the CC site???
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Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 9:25 PM - Response #21
After 2 years. We have over 26,000 5% deceased,
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Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 2:44 AM - Response #22
Our site has been up one year to the day almost and we are at 45% with 95 out of 200 registered on the site. We just had the most successful reunion years, though, with about 115 in attendance versus 42 five years ago. So it seems that we are somewhat typical.
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