In a future release, I believe it might be very useful if either "Not attending" or "zero" (0) could be added as an option for Attendee Registrations within the REUNION PLANNER. Also, it would be super if the "Attending..." profile question/answer can be captured in the REUNION PLANNER data. I recently sent an email blast to all unregistered attendees asking them to please RSVP (yay or nay) for our upcoming reunion. Of course I included a link to register for the event, plus I explained how to edit one's profile if the answer is No.

The result was a number of confused alumni! I can't tell you how many email replies I received from classmates believing they had either RSVP'd already or letting me know that they could not attend. Many even apologized for being unable to provide their regrets online as I had instructed them! (Some specifically mentioned looking for a way to enter "zero"...)

I must say, I had really labored over my wording trying to be as clear as possible! Always room for improvement of course, this is what I ultimately sent out to over 2400 alumni:

Quote:

Btw, we are currently expecting about 700 alumni (more than 1000 with guests) in attendance at our celebration event -- just 4 weeks away!

We will take the "0" idea into consideration.

"Btw, we are currently expecting about 700 alumni (more than 1000 with guests) in attendance at our celebration event -- just 4 weeks away!"

That is an amazing number of people for your event! Congratulations!

Thank you, Scott. I can guarantee you that our CC multiyear website made all the difference in our huge turnout. Frankly, the numbers have nearly caught us off guard... it's quite intimidating!!!

We had our 40th reunion last summer and I think the question about the reunion (planning to attend or whatever it is) on the classmates' profile pages could just be deleted. It seemed to be confusing to everyone.

Hi Rhonda,

That question is optional. Each admin can make the decision if they want that question to be active or not for their event.

Jessica
Class Creator Support

That is why I think the resulting data needs to be integrated with the "registered attendee" info. I did consider turning off the question, but if I had, would I still have had the option to "Email the Following Members" that met these criterion?
Answered Yes for attending, and have registered (548 )
Answered Yes for attending, but have not registered (152)
Answered Maybe for attending (239)
Answered No for attending (237)
Have not yet answered if attending (1795)

Without that question switched on, I would only know about the 548 registered attendees and their guests. Personally, I find that "regrets" and "maybe" answers are also very useful in plotting out attendee projections.

There's no question that having two separate paths (to what should be the same end) is certainly confusing for our website members. Hopefully this process can be reevaluated and streamlined in the next Reunion Planner release.

Cheers!

Thanks for clarifying that Jessica. It's been awhile since I set up our site - if I had it to do over again and finding out that it presented some confusion, people, I would probably not use it. On the other hand, I think classmates took note of who was "planning" to attend and that encouraged more to attend.

I will say that once I started posting on the home page the names of all classmates (along with spouse/guest) who had registered for the reunion, many more started registering! It was especially encouraging for those who would be attending as a single to see that many others were also attending single.

I agree about a need for change here. Class members seemed more confused signing up for this reunion, and I've had to send out some group emails, plus quite a few individual ones. I don't remember the confusion last time (4 years ago), but then I had more latitude in creating my questions so I could get the data I needed. Those options were removed this time and there seemed to be more constraints.

It will be interesting to see your next iteration.
I like the idea of listing attendees on the homepage. I don't believe people are using the option on the "alumni profile" page.

Just posting to reactivate this conversation... a year later, another reunion, same problem...

Any news on this topic?

Thanks!

Terry