Changes to the Blencowe Family Interactive Web Site
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blencowe-and-variations_family_history/
Some facts about the Blencowe Interactive site
Purpose: to facilitate group discussion and allow posting of files and photos for all to see.
Membership for the Interactive site currently 112 members of which only 35 are BFA members
367 group messages exchanged so far on the site along with numerous files and 60+ photos posted.
Comparison with BFA membership
| Broken down by country of BFA membership | Members |
|---|---|
| Australia and New Zealand | 56 |
| UK | 80 |
| USA | 90 |
| Canada | 9 |
| Germany | 1 |
| Spain | 2 |
| Belgium | 1 |
| Thailand | 1 |
| Panama | 1 |
| Total BFA members | 241 |
How can we improve BFA participation on the interactive web site?
Well firstly, the interactive web site isn't for everyone, but clearly those who have joined are getting something from it., The problem is most are non-members of the BFA.
While I am pleased with the uptake and general use of the web site the fact remains the BFA gets short shifted by people who 'pick the collective brains' of BFA members and database but don't often consider the value of the information they receive worthy of our modest subscription fee.
While I don't propose to make BFA subscription a mandatory for my web site, I would like to start to identify BFA members and non BFA members so that we can encourage membership subscription and underscore the value to non members of the information researched over many years by the BFA.
Your membership ID cards will be distributed in this newsletter.
To make this work it will require BFA members to be identifying themselves with their ID number in correspondence on the interactive web site or better still change their ID on the site to match the BFA ID number. I will assist anyone who needs assistance to do this.
I hope that BFA members think this is a worthwhile thing to do; increasing our membership has value to us all.
Roger Blinko
New Zealand
I think this is an excellent opportunity to help protect the integrity of our family history collection. Often a lot of information is passed over to non members without so much as a thank you. Anne