Ameraucana Alliance MeWe Group

[Mindy Waters]

Hello all! We would like your input on adding an Ameraucana Alliance MeWe group. Do you feel this platform would be beneficial to the club and its members? We'd love to hear from you.

[Mike Gilbert]

The more choices the better.   There is tracking and suppression of free speech on Facebook, and I have had a MeWe account since May of 2019.   There is not nearly as much traffic there, but it is  starting to pick up, and if we had a group page there we would be more likely to use it. 

[Mindy Waters]

I think Instagram is good platform as well. It is more for sharing photos, but can be a good way to cultivate interest in the breed and direct people to the other platforms for learning and discussion. It's also very low maintenance.

[Suki]

I believe the answer is that this site be made mobile friendly or scrapped.  I don't want two sites for one club.  That is extremely user unfriendly.

[Mike Gilbert]

MeWe had so many people joining last night at the same time they had to shut it down temporarily.  It now has nearly 15 Million users.   The following is a copy and paste from the MeWe site.

Tonight: Temporary Site Slowwwwdownnnnnn FIXED 🙂

Hey Everyone - tonight we had a slowdown due to all of our awesome new members simultaneously (thousands at a time) uploading, inviting, and matching their phone and address book contacts on MeWe!

1) We're back - everything is speedy and smooth! 🆗

2) Temporarily we have disabled this feature for a very short time period while we fix the issue.

3) We apologize. Everything else is working splendidly - and as we already have nearly 15M members, we've pressure tested everything in preparation for our new members!

4) Thank you for your patience and understanding - we'll get address book matching back on live within a few hours! 🙏

5) In the interim, to our awesome new members, please start searching around and playing with MeWe - use our "Smart Search" to look for people and to search our Group and Page directories. Enjoy connecting and have a great time! 🙋♀

Cheers and Welcome (new and old members:) 👋

We've got this! #LetsMeWe 🎉

[John W Blehm]

I believe the answer is that this site be made mobile friendly or scrapped.  I don't want two sites for one club.  That is extremely user unfriendly.

Our FaceBook site and any others we may start up just give us added internet presence and let members talk Ameraucanas on the media they prefer.  Rather than scrap any, I suggest considering going back to having us just in charge of this forum and having individuals operate all the Ameraucana social media sites they want on all the platforms they prefer, like Facebook, MeWe, Twitter, Parler, Instragram, SnapChat, etc.

Article 4 – Ameraucana Newsletter
Our Ameraucana Newsletter is our official means to disseminate information to our membership, but since it is only received quarterly the board may also use our Ameraucana Forum (Ameraucana.org) and/or email to communicate information it feels is relevant.

[Suki]

That idea John is dead in the water.  The board is flagged by spam by many company intranets. People want to respond to email at least, this setup does not allow that....but it seems you are happy.

[Suki]

MeWe had so many people joining last night at the same time they had to shut it down temporarily.  It now has nearly 15 Million users.   The following is a copy and paste from the MeWe site.

Tonight: Temporary Site Slowwwwdownnnnnn FIXED 🙂

Good to hear. I could not get in at all.  Thanks Mike.

[Michael Muenks]

One of the ironies of the times we live in, forums are flagged by companies and Facebook is not. I suggest that the club communication plan focus on purpose.The forum is nice because it is great for storing information and searching is breeze.

For instance:

Forum - announcements, club member discussions and storing information
Facebook - outreach to non-club members, standard breed information and advice, non-technical discussions,  announcements, real-time event updates
Instagram - outreach to non-club members, announcements, real-time event updates
MeWe - club member discussions, outreach to non-club members, announcements, real-time event updates
Twitter - announcements, real-time event updates

[John W Blehm]

Generally the structure of an organization has different tiers and I believe our Alliance board of directors is on top and should concentrate on controlling “the affairs of the club” as our constitution says.  All of us as individual Alliance members are supported from the top to be the “folks focused on the promotion of standard bred Ameraucana chickens and positive support for those interested in standard bred Ameraucana chickens”. 
I say take our current FB site out of the hands of our Alliance and let an individual(s) have it.  "Ameraucana Alliance" should not be in the title of any social media site run by an individual.  The name on a site run by an individual should not claim to be an Alliance site and our logo should be displayed in a manner so it doesn’t look like the Alliance endorses them but rather that they support the Alliance.  If our logo is displayed I think the member’s social media site could say something like “We support the Ameraucana Alliance” above it. 

[Mike Gilbert]

Update on the MeWe Alliance site.   It just started up, thanks to the owner, Mindy.   I am serving as an administrator, along with Mindy.   As of 12:30 p.m. today, January 11th, we already have 54 members.    And we are growing quickly.   John and Michael, come on over to the dark side.        Once there do a search for me and put in a friend request.    I am the Michael Gilbert with an African violet photo and an icon with me in hunting garb with my dog.       
http://MeWe.com   

[John W Blehm]

The board of directors has voted and the majority voted to make the MeWe site an Alliance site.
Due to a lack of confidence, by most of the board members, in my leadership of the Alliance and other issues I will resign as president effective at noon, on February 23rd.

[Mike Gilbert]

The board of directors has voted and the majority voted to make the MeWe site an Alliance site.
Due to a lack of confidence, by most of the board members, in my leadership of the Alliance and other issues I will resign as president effective at noon, on February 23rd.

Well, that took a nasty turn.   Think it over John.    No matter who is serving, they are not going to be agreed with 100% of the time.    If I had known this would happen, I would have just deleted my Facebook account and not proposed MeWe at all.

[Suki]

hi


I removed my earlier reply as I realized all you are doing is removing yourself as liaison to the Directors.  You will remain Treasurer and we have no President for the next two years, and thus no one accountable to the group.  Is that the correct understanding, or another election with elected officials going to be held i.e.returning to our original charter.


Thanks Sue

[John W Blehm]

hi

I removed my earlier reply as I realized all you are doing is removing yourself as liaison to the Directors.  You will remain Treasurer and we have no President for the next two years, and thus no one accountable to the group.  Is that the correct understanding, or another election with elected officials going to be held i.e.returning to our original charter.

Thanks Sue

Our Constitution...

Section 3. Open positions on the Board of Directors shall be filled by a person selected by the President and approved by the Board of Directors.  If the President is unable to serve, the remaining members of the Board of Directors will select a replacement, from the Board, by majority vote.
Article 6 - Election of Officers...
Candidates for President must also have first served at least one full two year term on the Board of Directors, before taking the office of President.