How To Bring New People To The Refuge

[Karen]

Wouldn't it be nice to share our lovely new fast forum with other people? The number of members posting seems to be gradually falling, which also presumably makes it tougher to organise transport and arrange volunteers for other events. Maybe rescue people could say one way or the other?

 

So, your best ideas please, how we could entice more people to join The Refuge or to encourage the existing members to come back and post.

[chickentikka]

My suggestion is an oldie but a goodie - how about an auction, we could advertise on FB, Twittery fing and other places. If we all try really hard and post threads and pics etc during the aution period some people might stay.

 

I know that running an auction is loads of hard work (and the number of participating hosts has declined - but that's yet another topic) however I put myself forward to help out in said auction. I work so can't get on here during the day and am on holibobs for a good chunk of September - but would be up to help out in a grand Oktoberfest auction

 

Disclaimer - I also have a load of tat to get rid of so may have a vested interest

[elricc]

Can I be very honest?

I stopped posting as the forum became in my view very cliquey and exclusive, people were ignored in RMF and stopped posting. There also seemed to be less about rescue and dogs.

When I stopped posting I lost the habit and when I looked again there didn't seem enough to capture my attention or keep me interested

[smirnoff]

I became a bit of a stranger too - no real reason. I still visit other rescue forums quite often.

 

An auction might get people posting again and do some valuable fundraising at the same time. I've just helped on the RDR auction and done the spreadsheet to say who won what and I'd be happy to the same for the Refuge. Not sure I've got anything to sell anymore though - I think it's already gone to the RDR auction.

[dibs]

We can all spread the word on Twitter and FB?

[snow]

Can I be very honest?

I stopped posting as the forum became in my view very cliquey and exclusive, people were ignored in RMF and stopped posting. There also seemed to be less about rescue and dogs.

When I stopped posting I lost the habit and when I looked again there didn't seem enough to capture my attention or keep me interested

 

Thank you for your honesty Laura

 

The RMF thing is something that bugs me we say over and over and over again year in year out that RMF is a random dumping thread, it moves fast at times and slow at others, and if things don't get responded to it's nothing personal, yet time and time again people do take it personal, and then the cliquey charge gets made because someone elses post does get a response within 30 seconds but thats the nature of THAT thread. It was made worse for a time when the forum was playing silly beggars and peoples quotes were lost or people couldn't reply and by the time they could the thread had moved on, with the new sooper dooper host the technical issues should now be gone, but that won't alter the fact that RMF is not the place to post if you expect a reply.

 

As far as having enough to capture attention or interest - well the solution to that is to start threads that do interest you, content comes from the members, if theres not a thread that grabs attention, why not start one?

 

As for there being less about rescues and dogs, Refuge never has been exclusively about rescues and dogs, people are free to talk about whatever they want to talk about, sometimes thats rescues and dogs and sometimes its big brother and snails after all - all rescue all of the time would get very draining and frankly people deserve to be able to take their rescue heads off now and again and spend some time talking and thinking of other things. On top of that for every person who thinks theres not enough rescue chat theres another who thinks theres too much chat about this rescue or that rescue, it's utterly impossible to please everyone, the only solutions is as I said above - start threads that interest you, hopefully they'll interest someone else too.

 

 

An auction is in the pipe line actually - we were asked for permission to hold one a while ago but wanted to hold off until the forum move was made, once we're fully functional and stable I expect that to go ahead fairly quickly

[kittycat]

I stopped posting a while ago no reason other than life. It's really hard to get back into posting and as it's so quiet here now there doesn't seem much to actually reply to. I tend to read a lot now since I can get on here with iPod and it gives me something to do while I'm stuck in work

 

It's a shame really as my dogs got so much out of the forum in such a variety of ways, we met up for dog walks, ideas for treats, training ect. There was always something in swap shop or people selling collars, coats for rescues and such. It gave me an education on rescue also and the opportuninty to help out. I also met some FAB people and made great friends.

 

I've never really noticed the cliquey side of the forum but I suppose if you post and nobody talks to you you're not likely to keep posting and are going to think people are ignoring you. I like the RMF thread but it does seem to be the only thread that has activity.

 

I think an auction would be great I'm moving house soon so need to fill it with Fugee style tack

[zico's mum]

Another who doesn't post as much as I used to.Now I tend to post in Oldies section as I'm fundraising for them.It's sad to see how few rescues post here now,especially in the volunteers section,hardly any homecheck or transport requests compared to previously.RMF Is an area I struggle with,I do think it's much too long and agree with Snow that people are posting in there things which really do deserve a thread of their own.Anyway back to original question FB (and similar) are good ways to spread the word,and I do love an auction.

[Karen]

Good to hear that there is an auction in the pipeline. I know that other forums will send out an email to all members when something special is happening - is that something the Refuge could do? A sort of re-launch and we've got an auction message?

 

Could the Oldies Club use their Twitter to get more people to join their section of the forum?

[Mrs Mop]

I am going to run an auction for Rescue Remedies, if you are going to run one can you let me have the dates asap so they don't clash.

 

An auction will bring people here but won't keep them, you really need to keep people so need people posting in the forum.

 

Most people post in rmf now and rarely on the forum, I have problems with rmf because of the speed of it, I don't have problems on other boards with rmf as the members there also post on the board for important things.

[Happylittlegreensquirrel]

I think the current lay out of the board is just too big for the current active posters so a lot of posts outside RMF get overlooked

 

 

 

I post a lot in RMF because its where other posters are

 

Things like the help section are often responded to because its tucked away in an area that most members never look at. I would guess that transport runs etc suffer the same way as there is not the traffic looking at those areas.

 

 

Its like The refuge is like a huge old stately home and the room thats been kept open with the roaring fire is RMF and all the crumbly old wings are things like "help needed" , "training and behaviour" , "pictures" etc

 

 

I would merge a lot of it together to create a faster moving areas , use FB and Twitter to remind people we are here and mass message members.

 

close off some of those old wings untill we have more members or risk losing those brave souls who venture into them befind a staffed bear or up a blocked off fireplace

 

Edited to add that STUFFED bear not STAFFED bear !

Edited August 4, 2010 by Happylittlegreensquirrel

[smirnoff]

I've never been in RMF.

 

Billy no mates and I wonder why!!!!

[Mrs Mop]

At the top of the board on the right is "View new content", if you click on this it brings all the posts up that have been posted since your last visit. I always use this so I don't miss any important posts.

 

Recently there have only been a few each time I come on, and some days there has only been 3 all day.

[snow]

At the top of the board on the right is "View new content", if you click on this it brings all the posts up that have been posted since your last visit. I always use this so I don't miss any important posts.

 

Recently there have only been a few each time I come on, and some days there has only been 3 all day.

 

The view new posts is really useful and is the first thing I click on whenever I open up the forum, I agree that there has been fewer posts outside RMF but in fairness the forum has had is share of technical problems which dragged on a bit and meant that the board went off line or gave error messages etc so a big part of the problem was down to that - now we're on a much better server those problems should go away, but we like all boards still rely on members actually starting new threads and responding to new threads, unless we all put the effort in then nothing will change.

 

Rick did have plans to move the forums around a bit and lump things together but again this had to wait for the server move - once thats totally finished thats next on his list I believe.

[Happylittlegreensquirrel]

I think there are a lot of ex members who are posting on Facebook or other forums

 

can you set up one of those free online surveys and ask people ( anonymously ) to give feedback as to why they are not posting here . If you know why people are not posting you can do something about it

 

Equally you could ask people who are still posting to give feedback ( again anonymously if that suits people )

 

I am sure on any message board or forum there is natural attrition but it feels to me like a vast amount of members have left