Friday, December 31, 2010

Masonic Technology: Call Em' All






During the past year, the Grand Lodge of Connecticut began an initiative that encouraged their lodges to use a technology called "Call Em All". Call Em All is a service that allows a admin user to set up a call list of phone numbers and record a single message. The service then calls all the numbers on the list and plays the recorded message. Our Grand Lodge paid for the accounts for all the lodges in Connecticut and automatically set up their call lists based on the lodges' membership roll.

The lodges can use this service to record messages to go out to all of it's members. Examples of this includes:


  • Stated Communication Reminders
  • Master's Messages
  • Event Announcements
  • Funeral Notifications
  • Monthly Birthday Lists
  • Calendar Updates
  • Masonic Education


This list of ideas is by no means comprehensive. There are tons of ways that lodges could use this service. Lodges within our Grand Jurisdiction have been using it for several months now and many lodges are seeing an increase in meeting attendance and activity.

For lodges outside of my Grand Jurisdiction, who do not have the service automatically paid for, the service is relatively inexpensive and costs between five and ten cents a call, which is far cheaper than printing and mailing a notice. There are also bulk rates for the same list if used several times a month. More information on pricing can be found here.

This service is a great way to reduce costs and to reach out to members that do not have standard electronic communication, such as email. If a receiver of a call doesn't wish to receive more notifications, the recording has an option to opt out of additional calls.

My lodge has been using Call Em All for about two months now and we plan to use it heavily in the coming year. What other purposes could we use this for? I'd love to hear some additional ideas.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad


2 comments:

Simon LaPlace said...

The cost is 4 cents per call up to three calls a month, then no charge for more calls. But then again you risk burnout and recipients can opt out of receiving calls. We set the limit at 2 minutes, but honestly you want to hang up before a minute goes by. The calls are set up only to members who live in Connecticut.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the further information, Brother Simon :)

I'll try to update the main post to have these details included.