Since our first Mailchimp Newsletter on 2nd August 2022 we have sent out 6 Newsletters. Our subscriber number has risen from 49 to 363! So we felt it was time to ask our subscriber what they think about the Newsletter and how we can make it even better in future.

Number of responses: 358 emails were delivered, 258 opened the email. 46 readers participated in the survey (17.9% – this is not bad as a response rate in general for an unsolicited questionnaire but also not a fantastic engagement).

Section most likely to be read was Our News and the Community Quiz was the least read. So we have decided to pause the Community Quiz, of course we will leave all the Community Quiz questions up on the site, just in case you want to have a wee historical facts teaser.

Readers clicked most frequently through to New Additions, to the Topic and a bit less to Curator’s Choice and Family Announcement. A few users found the hyperlinks difficult to spot. We will try to make them more prominent.

The result about how often we should publish the Newsletter was spread almost evenly over 6/8/12 times a year. So we will plumb for the middle, i.e. 8 times and hope that will suit most subscribers.

Many of the respondents commented on our question: Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the COIF Newsletter? We list the comments below. Overall we felt it was an affirming response, so we will continue to send out Newsletters and will come back with another survey in a year or so.

There was a request for more day-to-day life stories from the Ecovillage: Britta Schmitz is doing a great job in her live-stream on the Findhorn Foundation Facebook page, so this is the good source for fresh day-to-day views. Where relevant we will make stories out of those here in the website. You can also subscribe to the Rainbow Bridge which is our weekly Community magazine.

We hear the questions of When will we meet again on Zoom? We are aware that many of us miss these wonderful opportunities to connect. Sadly, the present COIF core team does not have the resources to take that on, but we would be keen to work with someone, or a small group, to help bring about Members Councils – if YOU feel called to help with this – please get in touch!

We note the comments about the acronym COIF and will avoid using it in the email subject line.
The acronym is the result of a very long name for our website. The name was the result of an extensive community survey undertaken by Avalon Santos Willmott when she was designing the logo early in 2022. She circulated the survey widely to offer it to Community members both locally and globally. We had a sizable response of 97 members and the result favoured Celebrating One Incredible Family. A substantial cross-organisational group with FF and NFA members present was closely involved with all the decisions made for the name and the logo (the work for that was paid for by the FF). Whilst we love the name as it refers to our strong bond as a family of like-minded souls, it is a bit of a mouthful and so the abbreviation is almost inevitable. We took a bit of comfort when researching the word coif, as it does refer to a symbol used by many major religions, the skull cap, which can be interpreted as the symbol for the link between us and God. And is not our One Incredible Family such a link for many of us?! As the songs says Where two or three are gathered together in my name ….

 

From the album ‘When two or more’ recorded in Findhorn, by Barbara Swetina and the Findhorn Community Singers available on www.sacredsongs.net for purchase or download

 

 

Responders’ Comments:

  • Brilliant initiative!
  • I Love it xxx
  • I have noticed that I never really look at the newsletter. It would be good, even though I live here, but it just does not happen. But I also do not want to unsubscribe. I could easily be that at some point I’d like a distance view on something the matters to me.
  • Have been very unaware of it – thought it related to the 60th birthday so haven’t noticed the emails
    I love the personal stories best of all.
  • Thanks for creating and distributing!
  • A marvellous archive, though with so much coming my way via internet, I may not access it very often…..
  • Yes for me it would be great if you didn’t use COIF as the sender / name if it. Every time you send me an email I wonder who COIF is and why they are spamming me. Even now I cannot remember what it stands for despite having looked it up multiple times – could the title be something clearer / not an acronym?
  • As I’ve only just subscribed I can’t answer a lot if your questions but look forward to reading news of Findhorn. Thank you
  • Great contribution to building community for Findhorn lovers far and wide
  • When we’ll meet again on ZOOM?
  • I would like to read more about the day to day life within the Findhorn Ecovillage .
  • warm regards – looking forward to the next newsletter
  • I think it will make a great archive if it remains permanently available .
  • COIF makes me think of hairdressing, not Findhorn. I have almost deleted the newsletter several times before I remembered. “Findhorn Family” or similar would be a better name, IMO.
  • Thank you, site growing nicely
  • Thank you for your effort to keep connecting us❣️even like me in the farest east!
  • I would like to thank you for your labours
  • I find it touching that those who work to make it happen are contributing to “community glue”.
    thanks for your work!
  • It’s lovely, you’re doing a great job!
  • Grateful for what you are doing. This work is a blessing.
  • Thanks from Oz