Encouraging Participation - Top tips for ongoing communication

Use regular communication via email and the dedicated work space to cultivate participation, learning, and content created by the community
Send friendly reminders for meetings. Even if participants received a schedule of events at the beginning of the project, send out e-mail reminders of upcoming meetings about one week in advance. Ensure the tone is welcoming, open and enthusiastic. Include sign-in information for online meetings and detailed information about the topic and goals of the session (or direct participants to where it is posted on the collaborative work space)
Follow-up with participants after each meeting. After each meeting, consider sending a follow-up email thanking people for their participation, summarising highlights, offering additional research or links, and encouraging them to use the collaborative work space to respond to the content and share their reflections, questions and suggestions
A short online survey after each webinar is another way of maintaining two-way communication. Information from the survey can be used to inform planning for future activities.
Follow-up with non-attendees
Keep the rhythm. If there are months in which there are no scheduled meetings, consider maintaining the rhythm of the community by sending out an ‘in-between’ e-mail around the time of the month the regular meetings are scheduled (e.g., second Tuesday of the month). The email could offer reflection questions, relevant links or research articles, or direct participants to new content posted on the work space
Post all communications on the collaborative work space. Ideally, participants will be using the collaborative work space for communication between one another and with the facilitator. Monitor the website at least once a week, post comments when participants make contributions, and aim to add new content at least once a month