PCI Communications Survey
This survey was conducted in 2025. Survey responses were opened on March 24th – sent out through the Pinewoods email list Articles and Announcements - and later posted on Instagram on May 17th. I'm not sure if they were ever posted on Facebook or other platforms. We also did not publish on the website.
Due to some of the haphazard data collection, I'd caution a few limitations:
- The group that reads emails had the most reminders of the survey (we sent it out twice) and therefore results may bias toward email readers.
- Along similar lines, emails are guaranteed to end up in a reader's inbox but social media algorithms may not present our posts to all out followers, which would increase that bias (though also tells us something interesting about the reliability of social media as a communication channel).
- Because I didn't think we got a representative sample across all age groups, I've presented all results broken down by age group.
- Two age groups had very few responses: 18-25 (n=2) and 46-55 (n=4) and their results may not tell us much.
Nevertheless, I draw the following tentative conclusions from the data:
- Email remains the most consistent communication channel across age groups older than 25.
- People are interested in a fairly even spread of different content types in our A&A emails.
- Remarkably few people had trouble finding information about camp that they wanted. This suggests that our website, though old, may still be doing its job.
Future recommendations:
- There remains some dissatisfaction on the board with the website. It would be interesting to explore the reasons for that from a board perspective instead of a site visitor perspective. Some possible explanations:
- The website requires more maintenance from the board than it should.
- The website, though serviceable, has an old design and the board would like to project an image of a more modern professional organization.
- We should post a simple ongoing feedback survey on the website in a permanent location and establish a plan for checking results from it.
- Do some user testing, asking people to find specific information about camp, and observing what they do to find it.
Remaining tasks to do on this data:
- Break down social media platforms
- Add a comprehensive list of all free response answers and write-in responses at the bottom of the document
How do you currently get information about or hear from Pinewoods?
How would you prefer to get information about or hear from Pinewoods?
What types of communications would you like to receive from Pinewoods in our A&A and social media?
If you prefer social media, which platforms?
Of respondents who replied to this question: