Membership Frustrations

You may have an assumption about what this entry will be about. If I were reading this on another blog I would probably brace myself for a whine about how frustrating it is to deal with membership. It could address the frustration of membership for DCP, getting people to join the club, promoting the club, retaining membership, etc.
Well, today you are in for a treat. I have a story and a tip for people who use Free Toast Host for their webpages. After that there will be a bit of whining.

After a large-ish group of new members joined, Twin City TM has been doing what it can to keep these members. We are watching for trends, seeing what works, assigning mentors, and such. Our goal is to understand the membership process better so we can attract more members in the future. One new member seemed to have fallen through the cracks. He joined and then never came again. We have a mentor ready for him, but nobody had heard from him.
This weekend I decided to contact him myself. I had put it off long enough. I put an email together with his mentors information and some encouragement to come back to meetings. Then the weirdest thing happened: my email couldn't be sent because the address was wrong. It didn't bounce back to me- my computer simply refused to send it. It took me 3 seconds to realize the problem... see if you can spot it: you@google,com.

Yes, there was a comma rather than a dot. For weeks our emails to said new member were lost in the mystical world of the internet all because of a comma. Things weren't bouncing back to anyone because the system probably ignored the email address. Someone entered him quickly and didn't check.

This happens and probably more often than we admit. My tip- for those using Free ToastHost- is to check those email addresses and make sure they are correct. It may not be a comma, it could be a zero and the letter o. It could be any little mistake in an email address. Check those addresses yourself and make sure the person gets the email.

Now here is the whine- why did nothing ever let us know the email address was wrong. I know tons of systems out there will tell you when you haven't entered a valid email address. Why can't this system. I may have to send the suggestion in.