Who is a Society Member?
The question recently asked, by an ex-student, if he was a member (the answer is always yes) raises the general question of membership of the Society. The committee’s conclusion is that membership should be very inclusive. Members are students, ex-students and teachers of the current Minster School and all predecessors of the Minster School. As an example this includes all schools on the Church Street site, the Old Grammar School site and the Edward Cludd. In the distant past a fee was charged to cover the cost of communication but this is now waved on the basis the people can be contacted electronically. Read on and you will understand the full meaning behind the last statement
The Situation As We See It
History
Since the end of WW2 about 10K students have passed through the Minster School and its predecessors with each one of these being a potential member of the Old Southwellians Society. In the old days it was simple you sent in your home address and telephone number and news came in the form of a newsletter or mail shot. Today even with the addresses that are up to date one mail shot would bankrupt the society. With the advent of e-mails life became simpler but even here e-mail address are not always kept up to date. Enter social networking with Friends Reunited. This partially works but if the news is not a physical event you are unable to make mass mailings (FR says this stops spam emails). Websites are great as fundamental repository for archives of stories, history and the written documents but are poor at interactive communication. Finally and best, came Facebook but this has been the victim of its own success with 5 current Minster School associated ‘Groups’ being set up. So we have a very fragmented and confusing situation
Dependance and Vulnerability to Friends Reunited
Of even greater concern is our venerability to and dependence on Friends Reunited. We have 7039 names of ex-students of which 405 (7%) are on our own spread sheet and contains name address telephone no sometimes and 250 with e-mail address only. Face book, over 4 locations, has 2358 names (33%) but although we are free to communicate freely with all these people we do not, for security reasons, see their e-mail addresses. Friends Reunited has 4276 (60%) names over two 'Places' only allows communication about a physical event and again not sight of individuals e-mail addresses or details if they do not want to divulge it.
Trends in Social Networking
Facebook is the DeFacto standard for the below 30's and increasingly for the older age groups as well. Data indicates that 75 % of all teenagers use Facebook and by the time they leave school it is over 90% Google has recently announced a product called Google+ but take up is, so far, not spectacular but things could change. Friends Reunited is strongly rumoured not to be commercially viable and may not survive even in the short term potentially taking 60% of our ability to communicate with members with it. Friends Reunited is built to prevent access to data so we are powerless to do anything. Only individual action can retrieve this data!.
Our Preferred Solution
So we have to have a solution.
- The grand plan is to have one professional website and one Facebook group with both having the brand name of the ‘Old Southwellians Society’.
- The website exists but needs further developing and content adding
- A Facebook GROUP has now been created and is called ‘Old Southwellians Society’. Our task now is to ask/persuade all current School sites to join the new group as a means of being kept up-to-date with what’s going on.
Where Do You Come In?
- If you don’t have a profile on Facebook then you need to create one. Nothing difficult or scary about this. If you have trouble ask you children or better still grandchildren, I did.
- Join the newly created ‘Old Southwellians Society’ Facebook group by searching for it and then ‘join the group’ the group or for a Facebook ‘friend’, who is already a member of the group, to invite you to join.
- If you have a Facebook profile already then simply join the new group as above.
- Security and Privacy on Facebook
Security on Facebook
Some of the feedback has concerned privacy and security. My advice and experience to those who have not used Facebook before is:-
- Initially post the minimum of information about yourself
- Read the help and notes on privacy and go for the maximum privacy
- Learn from actual friends on what works and what doesn’t works
- Don’t accept offers of friendship from people you don’t really know