Our apologies to those who disliked the catch-up editions last week. (Catch-up can be messy if you get it on your shirt?) Three Brigada participants wrote, urging us to change our approach of writing mini-editions separately. I’ve always heard that if one person complains, there are usually 999 who feel the same way, but for whatever reason, maybe they held their tongue. If that’s the case, it’s as if I got email from 3000 people in the past couple of weeks! (No wonder I’m sleepy! :-) ) All three said, basically, “Please don’t send multiple emails within the same week unless it’s something extremely important.” Our response? “OK! We’ll listen.” So, in an effort to be sensitive to their input, we’re making this a multiple edition all-in-one. At least if we’re going to catch-up, it’ll only have to spill one time. In the future, we’ll try to stay on track! (You’re saying ‘yeah right,’ but I really mean it! :-) Honest I do. A Brigada reader here at Lausanne sympathized with me. These are *extremely* long days. It’s now 1am. Not an excuse. Just an explanation. Anyway… on with the messy catch-up.
I agree with previous commentators. The objective should not be to write x number of times, the objective should be to disseminate information that is valuable enough for the recipient to spend the time opening the email (while already not having sufficient time to process all incoming emails).
If there are too many times that it is perceived as not a sufficiently useful exercise in opening the email, then I will filter it and let it go straight to archive without any of them entering my inbox, therefore I will never see it unless I want to go look something up.
I hope that sufficiently explains why I concur with the other 3 who commented. Of course your task is difficult because you really cannot please all the people all the time can you? :-)
Thank you for your ministry, it is appreciated!