A large task for family reunion organizers is to manage communications with family members. Family reunion organizers must know who to contact, how to contact them, what information to communicate and when, as well as effective tools and methods to communicate.
Create a Family Reunion Contact List
Once you have created a list of relatives you want to invite, reach out to at least one person from each family branch to obtain or validate the contact information (name, postal address, email, phone number) for all those on your list. Ask them for information about people you are missing or may not know are part of the family. Be sure to collect family members’ email addresses, as sending broadcast emails is an easy, efficient, and economical way to share information and provide quick updates. It is also a good idea to record how each family member prefers to receive communications (postal mail, email, family reunion website, or telephone).
Maintain a Family Reunion Contact List
It is important to maintain a family reunion contact list. If a family member intentionally omits a family member from an invitation to a family reunion, it may cause hurt feelings or create long-term family issues. Assign one person or a committee the responsibility of maintaining the names and contact information of family members. It is also critical to keep one list as the “system of record”. It is a bad practice to maintain multiple contact lists or to have multiple family members maintain different lists, as it is highly likely to create inaccurate records.
Our Free Family Reunion Contact List is available on the Downloads page.
Share Access and Protect the Family Reunion Contact List
The most critical part to managing a family reunion contact list is ensuring there is only one master contact list and that the list will “live on”. An online shared family reunion contact list is highly recommended. Keeping the family reunion contact records online can protect the records from accidental loss, as online data storage services maintain backups of files. In addition, online data storage enables file sharing to provide access to the list for more than one family member. Shared access by multiple family members and online backups will protect your data and keep your contact records ready for the next reunion.
