Following on 'OldNewbie’s comment on the 2FTS Survey, how many Wing actually use the Weekly Mail Drop facility? I know ours doesn’t.
Surely an easy way of covering the main points of the week from Command, ensuring nothing falls through the gaps, i.e. OC’s Inbox 
I think they are awful.
Firstly things get missed as people don’t read them fully, they are full of drivel which means that important things get lost in the background noise.
They don’t get shared with staff who don’t have a role account, in most Squadrons only 1 person monitors the general account so loads of staff have no idea what’s going on. Whereas an old fashioned email to all users would be more likely to be passed on to Squadron SME’s because it’s buried amongst loads of drivel the whole thing just gets ignored.
As a Wing SME you often forget to send stuff on to those who don’t have Bader email. Back when I was allowed to send all wing emails I would myself BCC in staff who I knew didn’t have Bader email, with a maildrop that’s not an option so I have to remember to wait until the maildrop has gone out and then send an email. I’d be much happier just sending an email in the first place.
We use Mail drops at work and as a line manager I have to go through them at briefings because no one reads them!
I’d much rather have more emails and just delete those that don’t matter, it’s not like it’s the end of the world.
A what now?
It matters to me because I don’t have a role inbox, so getting the maildrop through to the generic inbox is my only route to Wing comms*.
*Though my CO is good about sharing emails he gets, but I know not all are.
Some Examples
Herts & Bucks
Thames Valley
Hants & IOW
Devon & Somerset
Bristol & Gloucestershire
For mine I may review ahead of the official publication via email, but they are sent to ALL Wing, then as an OC when I receive I review and action as required, for some I will proactively point at my staff team, considering just forwarding to them all anyway.
Ultimately I don’t care if the staff miss out, they can all access it via SharePoint of the weekly email to the general account. I do care if cadets miss out.
Surely everyone should have access to at least the general account? When I did AVIP this was certainly something that had to be ticked off by CO/Trg Off (though whether it actually happened is a different story)
Yes, all staff “have access” but an awful lot of staff don’t use the general account
Having access and being the person who monitors it are very different things.
Some Squadrons are very good at having 1 person check the account regularly and bringing things that are for individuals to their attention. Others are not and some don’t seem to even use the General account at all.
We still have a lot of analogue staff for whom reading emails is a stretch, expecting them to go trawling through Sharepoint is a bad idea, especially when it’s still full of drivel.
I much prefer this system to any prior. Emails are more easily lost or overlooked. It’s a weekly hit of courses, info and news. I like them.
I find that individual emails tend to get dealt with straight away “oh this is about DofE I’ll forward it to the DofE Officer” whereas Mail drops tend to get ignored until later and ultimately ignored completely.
Surely that’s a good argument for the maildrop, though? All of the “Important” information, in one place, released on a regular schedule.
Personally, I think it’s a good thing. My inbox used to get battered on a regular basis by WSOs and SWSOs requesting this info and that. Forcing those emails to go through the maildrop has seen a lot of the drivel dry up.
I’m definitely in the “hate them” camp.
I hate them almost as much as I hate it when people spam the whole wing instead of just emailing to the people concerned.
I’d far rather get one email about one subject - as we are supposed to do - so that I can easily bin it/note it/reply to it/save it to the file system… as required and them move on to a separate email about a separate subject.
So by that logic, you should love them because you get no emails at all?
If everything is in a weekly release of info, for anyone to view (and I’d argue that those that have the ability and choose not to are making a choice that they don’t want to be involved or informed), you get fewer emails with spam. You can choose to open the item if you’re interested, or ignore it completely if not.
What is not to like?
You might think so… Except that I WANT to get emails… About the things which affect me.
When a mail drop contains things which I have to deal with I can’t just reply to them/save them to the file system/etc… And I have to wade through the whole thing to find out whether there is anything I have to deal with.
If we all used the email system properly then I shouldn’t receive anything which doesn’t require action on my part or is not for my information.
But it’s not, it’s all the important information and all of the drivel, all released in one place at the same time. It’s actually harder to ignore the drivel because you have to trawl through it, rather than just being able to ignore all of the emails from the Radio Officer etc that I’m never going to have any interest in.
I could liken Wing Mail Drops to the Routine Orders - which everyone is supposed to read but few even remember exist.
…And don’t get me started on “Repeat Orders” 
Devon and Somerset WHQ produces two PDFs each Wednesday (one for cadets and one for staff that includes the cadet bits) that is stored on sharepoint but also gets emailed to All Devon Somerset dist list. Items are kept to 200 words max summary with links to sharepoint for more info. It gets shared in various Sqn/Wing private social media channels so as many cadets and staff can access it. Any items with a greater classification than Official are not included.
I do enjoy the reduction in emails this has created. Only downside is it is slightly less convenient to respond to individual items in it.
I get a series of random emails as and when they are composed, usually in a long and fairly incomprehensible chain, trying to find the attachment is an art in itself.
The Army side, on the other hand, plan ahead and send out a monthly newsletter with all the relevant dates and info - much easier - if only.
Sounds similar to me!
Welcome also! 
“Use of email” is something that we ought to be including in staff training. It’s easy enough, it just requires that we tell people. Of course, the worst offenders tend to be those in senior positions so we’d have to ensure that they get trained too.
Simple stuff like:
‘One subject per email whenever possible’; ‘Redact the email chain unless it’s necessary for specific context’; ‘Summarise the issue in your email instead of expecting people to trawl through 20 messages up and down the chain to find the point’; ‘Use the proper subject line format’; ‘How to use distribution lists’; ‘Remember that it’s all permanent record’…
The trouble with Mail Drops is that they take away from the whole benefit of email. Email is supposed to be a timely, efficient way for us to communicate with each other. Mail Drops are not.
Those who do use them seem to do so because they think it avoids the problems of incorrect use of email… We’d all be better off fixing the problem instead of adopting a clunky ‘solution’.