I’ve had two opposing experiences with choir emails recently.
One was a list created for a concert I was at one time interested in singing in. I received a 6MB message from this list, almost all of it being a photo taken by the conductor of a cloud whose shape had amused her. At this point I read her the riot act about bandwidth. People who read email on mobile phones might have to pay dearly for a message like that! (Of course you can opt not to download attachments automatically, but many people don’t do this). [I’ve just had another similar email from a different person, consisting of nearly 2MB of flyer for someone else’s recital, in TIFF format(!)]
The other came after missing a couple of rehearsals with another choir. I turned up for the next rehearsal raring to go, only to find the venue locked and empty. It turned out that it had been cancelled and announcements made at the rehearsals I missed. I wasn’t on the choir email list because I hadn’t yet auditioned. Now I realise that keeping probationary singers off the main email list is nice and tidy for admin purposes, but if they don’t receive vital information like this it risks alienating the people you’re trying to attract. (I have since had an apology that my voice rep hadn’t noticed that I wouldn’t have have had the announcement about the cancelled rehearsal).
Choirs vary tremendously in their degree of use of email. Real die-hards who don’t use it at all (such as the late Eric Rosebery) are rare now, but there are still some directors who think that an email is a blank message with a Microsoft Word document attached. Others love bombarding your mailbox not only with info about their choir, but about numerous others.
These observations about email don’t just apply to choirs of course but somehow they seem particularly applicable here. Maybe it’s because choir email lists give you a chance to send email to lots of people at once, with associated scope for mishap.