Email Etiquette Guidelines

This page is intended to give some guidance on constructing emails for use within the church.

Subject

The Subject of an email is one of the most useful parts of an email. It allows the recipient to quickly identify what an email is about, and assign a priority to the email. It is not unusual for busy people to receive hundreds of emails a day, and having a convenient mechanism to scan the incoming list quickly is the greatest respect you can pay to that person.
Make the first word of the subject a key word to the message. Within the church, using the group name in CAPITAL letters is very effective. Here are some suggestions:
- COUNCIL: agenda papers ready for collection
- ELDERS: discussion document attached
- YELLOW FISH: gathering next Sunday
- CHOIR: rehearsal moved to Room 1
Ensure that you have a Subject to your message!
If the subject changes, or refocusses upon a particular subtopic of the original mail, use a revised subject, such as:
- YELLOW FISH: Timetable now on wiki [Was: gathering next Sunday]

Use Reply All with care. Make sure that your message is indeed relevant to all the people on the original mailing list. If in doubt, reply only to the author.
If you reply to additional people not on the author's original To or Cc list, ask the author if this is OK first.
For example, if a message is sent to [email protected], you can use reply all if you want everyone on the council list to see your reply, without asking the author of the original email.
If the material is sensitive, make sure your readers know that. Mark the email CONFIDENTIAL if you do not want it passed on to anyone else.