The Discussion Board is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gakiwanis/ You will have to setup an account at Yahoo if you do not already have one to become a member of the group. When you set up the account you will indicate whatever e-mail address you want the discussion groups e-mails to be sent to. It does not have to be a Yahoo e-mail address. For instance I use my dwight-watt@att.net e-mail address on the Yahoo groups I belong to. You will also choose if you want to receive e-mails from Group/Board separately or in a digest form daily (just one e-mail containing all messages sent that day). This can be changed as necessary later. Messages can also be read at the Discussion board’s address above without being a member, but to reply requires membership.

This is a moderated group so there will be a delay in when you send messages and when they appear in mailboxes. What this means is that I (or anyone else I may designate as a moderator) will approve the message before it is sent to group members. Basically this will stop spammers from signing up and sending spam or junk to the group or other inappropriate messages being sent. I am not intending to use this as a censure on legitimate Kiwanis messages, but to keep the junk out. As it stands now I am usually on e-mail in the morning evening and late at night so there should not be bad delays.

What can we use this Discussion board for? It is a way to get quicker communications between members and clubs and the officials of Georgia Kiwanis. If you have an event coming up that you would encourage other Kiwanis to attend, post it. For instance in may I will remind you of the Swainsboro Kiwanis Pinetree Festival. If you are a chair or officer and new information appears that you would like distributed before next Georgia Kiwanian here is a way. Congratulations for work (club or individual) beyond the call of duty are appropriate, but keep the personal notes on personal e-mail as remember if you put it on the Discussion Board it appears in all members e-mail boxes who are a member of the Discussion Board. For the time being I would prefer newsletters/bulletins not posted here as we could drown in the volume. However we may add a way later to post the newsletters/bulletins for people to go look at. You can post those items on your website. Swainsboro Kiwanis has their weekly bulletins this years being posted weekly on their web site before members receive in mail.

When you get a message from the discussion Board if you click reply in your e-mail it will default to go to all members of the group. Please try to be careful here. If it is only going to the sender, then you will need to copy and paste their address from their message in your TO: line replacing the group name. If you do not everyone will get the message and if occurs to much some may drop out. We will probably all make this mistake at some point but try to do good. I will try to not approve those messages and if time permits send to correct recipient or back to sender.

Other organizations have used these as great ways to convey information, as a sounding board for new projects or ways to do different, and ways to improve the organization. I have been a member of the Georgia Jaycees Group for several years and it has worked well.

Keep in mind non-Kiwanians can sign up also and so we do not want inappropriate items that may not be for public here. It could recruit some members also as a way for prospects to discover what we are doing and turn up at a project.

Dwight