The year 2010 was the third full year during which we sent bulk e-mails to our membership notifying them of the availability on our website of the latest issue of our newsletter, The Silicon Valley Chemist. We continued to use the e-mail marketing company, Constant Contact.
    We thought it wise to send these e-mails because we send the newsletter by U.S. mail only to the relatively small number of members who have written in to ask to be put on the mailing list. We do not charge our members for this.
    Constant Contact provides statistical reports on the year's activity, as shown in the table below.

Date Sent	Number Sent	Bounces	Opt-Outs
1/8	4027	17.9%	0.3%
2/10	4018	19.6%	0.1%
3/15	3555	5.6%	0.1%
4/10	3549	6.3%	0.3%
5/10	3668	6.8%	0.2%
6/3	3660	7.2%	0.4%
6/23	3711	8.6%	0.2%
8/4	3736	8.3%	0.2%
9/10	3755	8.5%	0.1%
10/6	3765	8.8%	0.3%
11/9	3787	9.3%	0.2%
12/2	3778	9.3%	0.1%

    The "Date Sent" column shows that our e-mails were generally sent monthly, usually near the beginning of the month.

    "Sent" is the number of e-mails sent each month; it reflects the normal fluctuation in our membership. In 2007 the address list was initially formed by taking the e-mail addresses from the Full monthly roster, and it has been modified monthly since then with data from the Activity roster.

    The number of bounces is considerably lower than it was last year; in 2009, nearly all percentages were between 10 and 20%. Sadly, members do not always update their e-mail addresses with the National office promptly!

     However, the Opt-outs were very low in 2008, were even lower in 2009, and continue to be low. This indicates, we hope, a low degree of apathy toward information regarding Section activities.

                                                                                           Ean Warren