Contact List Competence

Over the last decade I've held several service positions for a fellowship. My newest one started four days ago. As the Communications person I will be quarterbacking communications to other members in Missouri, and eventually reviving a dormant newsletter.

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The fellowship has a Google Workspace account for non-profits which will allow me to send out messages via a mail merge. (If I decide to get fancy with it I can set up an even add the person's name.) For the past few days I've been working on coming up with a solid contact list. The information is in one of four places, but one of those places actually has three different categories. And there's some overlap in the categories. 

I started out trying to put everything into a Excel spreadsheet and only confused myself. Next I tried Google Sheets, but since I don't know much about its commands I got angry and had to walk away. Eventually I sent an email to the person who did the job last year, then went out for a walk. 

Along the way another possible way to put together the list occurred to me. Back at home I manipulated the information I had and uploaded it into Google Contacts. then added categories so I can send out messages to some or all of them. I composed and sent a test message to everyone on my list by category. 

When it showed up in my personal inbox I was so excited I jumped up and started dancing around! 

It didn't take me long to realize that anyone who was in more than one category would have received the message more than once, so I started cleaning up the list. And I've already gotten a few automated responses that some of the addresses are not valid, so that's still more work to do.

Five years ago today: Thank God Its Monday