What "essential notice" means

Every message you send has a kind, chosen on the composer under What kind of message is this?. There are two.

Newsletter

News, events and anything else the club wants to share. It reaches only the members who agreed to receive the newsletter. Most of what you send is a newsletter.

Essential notice

A message that a member needs to know about their own membership. Use it for:

• the notice of an AGM or a meeting,
• dues falling due,
• a safety notice,
• a closure,
• a change to the membership.

Do not use it for news, events, fundraising or anything the club would like to promote. The composer says this next to the choice, in the same words every time.

What an essential notice does differently

• It reaches members who are not on the newsletter list, because they are still members and still need to know.
• It opens with the line "This is a notice about your membership, not a newsletter", and its footer says so.
• It is not published on your public News page, because it was written to members.

What never changes

• It never reaches someone who has unsubscribed.
• It never reaches an address that no longer works, or a member for whom no consent is on record.
• The unsubscribe link stays in it.
• It still follows your club's sending limits and pauses.

The declaration

Choosing Essential needs you to tick a box: "I declare that this message is an essential notice about members' membership, and that it is not news or marketing." Your declaration is written to the audit log under your name. Putting a message back to a newsletter is also recorded.

Why this exists

A newsletter needs consent. An AGM notice should not depend on whether someone ticked a box years ago. The declaration keeps that honest: it is on the record who said it was essential.

Related

Why a member is not receiving email