The Right Hundred

Picture the association's main WhatsApp group on an ordinary weekday. A circular about the state council meeting. Forty messages congratulating somebody on an award. A forwarded video. Three people asking whether Saturday's workshop is in the city or the suburbs. A good-morning image. Somewhere in the middle is the notice of the annual general meeting — the one message that month every member needed to read.

Most of them never saw it. Not because they don't care about the association, but because the association has trained them, one irrelevant message at a time, to scroll past.

Every message you send spends a little of your members' attention. Send enough that are not for them, and they stop reading the ones that are.

Why more messages means less reading

When everything is sent to everyone, each member receives mostly messages that are not about them: a meeting in a city they don't live in, a workshop for a speciality they don't practise, a committee they don't sit on. Nobody complains. They simply learn that your messages can be skipped — and they mute the group, archive the emails and swipe away the alerts.

The damage is silent. You do not find out when members stop reading. You find out when a well-planned event is half empty, or when the AGM struggles to reach its quorum. And the members quickest to mute a noisy group are the busiest ones — often exactly the people the association most needs to reach.

The opposite habit builds trust just as quietly. A member who only ever hears from you about things that concern them learns that your messages are worth opening. That trust is exactly what you need in hand on the day something genuinely matters.

Who are the right hundred?

The right hundred is not a fixed list. It is whoever a particular message concerns — and for most of what an association sends, that is far fewer people than "everyone".

Some messages you address yourself. A notice for the whole association — the AGM, a change of office-bearers, a statement on an issue that affects the whole profession — goes to every member, in their app and as an alert on their phone. But a chapter meeting, a workshop for one speciality or a notice for the women's wing does not need to reach everybody. Members naturally fall into groups — by city, chapter, speciality, committee or interest — and when those groups exist in your member records, a notice can be addressed to them alone. Only the members of the groups you pick will find it in their app; everyone else never sees it.

In a federation, apply the same discipline at every level. The national body writes about what concerns every member; each state and each chapter writes to its own. A member should never have to read three versions of the same circular, one from each tier above them.

Many other messages address themselves. The reminder before an event goes only to the people confirmed for it, guests included. The request for feedback goes only to those who registered and have not yet answered. "Voting is open" goes only to eligible voters. "Your certificate is ready" goes to the one person it belongs to. The more of your communication that follows what members actually do, the less of it has to be broadcast.

Timing is part of the message

A relevant message sent at the wrong moment is still noise. A few habits make the difference:

• Write it now, publish it later. A notice can be scheduled for the morning people actually read, and it goes out on its own.
• Let it expire. Give a notice an end date and it takes itself down when it stops being true — so nobody turns up at last month's venue.
• Keep "critical" for what is critical. Priority levels exist so that the one urgent notice stands out; if everything is urgent, nothing is. Pin the single notice that matters most to the top of members' updates.
• Send it when it can be acted on. A notice about a workshop is useful three weeks before it, not the night before.
• Attach the circular. Put the letter, the agenda or the form on the notice itself, so that nobody has to ask for it.

Just as important, notices then live in one place members can come back to — the updates in their app — instead of scrolling away in a chat. (Why that place matters is the subject of The Association in Every Pocket.)

Let members choose, too

Relevance has a second half, and it belongs to members. In the app, each member chooses which kinds of message reach them, and whether as an alert on their phone or by email — event reminders, announcements, election notices, certificates, each set separately. The messages nobody can do without, such as payment confirmations, always come through.

It can feel like giving away control. In practice, a member who has chosen how to hear from you is far more likely to listen when you do.

What each person gets back

Sending less, and sending it to the right people, is not only kinder to members. It makes everyone who writes to them more effective.

The member

Fewer messages, each one meant for them, in one place they can return to. And a say in how, and whether, they are reached.

The chapter or wing convenor

A way to reach their own members — for a local meeting, a workshop, a visit — without writing to the whole association and apologising for it.

The secretary

No more "please ignore if not applicable". Notices go out on schedule, carry their own attachments, and take themselves down when they expire.

The president and the committee

When the AGM notice, the election or the statement in a crisis goes out, members read it — because the association has not spent their attention on everything else.

The association

Attention is the one thing an association cannot buy back. Kept for the moments that matter, it is worth more than any single message.

Putting it to work

You can change how your association is read within a month:

• Set up groups that mirror how your members really cluster — city, chapter, speciality, committee, interest.
• Default to the smallest audience a message needs, and widen it only when it truly concerns everyone.
• Move official notices out of the chat group and into one place of record. Keep the chat for conversation.
• Schedule notices for when members read, and give every notice an end date.
• Reserve "critical" for the handful of messages that really are.
• Let the automatic messages do their own addressing — reminders, feedback requests, election notices and certificates already know who they are for.
• Ask members to set their preferences when they first open the app.

Don't measure a notice by how many people it reached. Measure it by how many of the right people read it.