Our latest advertising request. My reply.=============================================== Hello Bethany On reflection, no, we will not be adding further links other than those specifically connected with family history, or local history in general. As useful as your advice is for flood risk and flood victims, there are a great many places online where such advice can be sought and given. Your advice page is patently under the guise of selling flood insurance, albeit on a page that �compares the market� for such services. I realise it is your job, you are paid, to promote the services of your employers. It is my job (I�m only a volunteer, unpaid) to protect our website and our viewers from overt advertising that only gets in the way genuine historical interest or research. It is my belief that our viewers and supporters of our museum would not want this. To which end I will publish your
request, and this reply, on our website so our
viewers can see I am being open and honest about our
values. I
may be wrong, in which case, no doubt our museum
team managers will advise me of this and replace me
with someone more amenable to the advertising
industry. I am happy to stand aside to make
way for a marketing manager. We get a great many requests (hundreds over the years) for links to do with health, in the main from American companies using their pages as camouflage for marketing products, health care, legal services, etc. Those for �legal� services I term as ambulance chasers. But I notice we are getting more requests now from British companies anxious to promote or sell their products under the guise of giving viewers something for free, usually advice they can get for free anyway. If I added all the links requested, we�d very soon have no room for what we are really about. During lockdown, I have spent more time fending off requests for adverts than actually replying or responding to genuine history requests. I know this will disappoint, but I trust that other British companies that see this reply may have second thoughts about approaching us. Thank you for your time. Rob Haywood The Sutton & Wawne Old School Museum www.suttonandwawnemuseum.org.uk admin@suttonandwawnemuseum.org.uk
From: Bethany Tomlyn
[mailto:bethany.tomlyn@thesixthdegree.uk] Hello Sutton & Wawne Museum, I was wondering if you have the time now to further discuss my suggestion a few days ago? I wanted to share this piece that contains insightful tips and advice on how to prepare and protect your family and home from a flood. You can view the full version below: Guide to Flood Safety & Resilience |
Hello potential advertisersWe started with one British mesothelioma site, aimed at British ex-servicemen. Then we added an American one. After that, I had repeated requests and added a further 5 American mesothelioma sites, all promoting their own disease awareness, but obviously none singing from the same hymn sheet. A wonderful example of private enterprise in action, all promoting their own competitive interests. What benefit you all are separately to American mesothelioma sufferers must surely be debatable. I suspect a lot of private enterprise money involved there somewhere. Once we were seen as a soft touch for links to mesothelioma sites, tugging on the sympathy muscle, other American agencies for various �products� have since emailed many times asking for links to financial (dollar sites) and legal (American lawyers, ambulance chasers in the main). This became unsustainable � as I point out on the website now, we are a local British history site and nothing more. So I feel I must repeat, and send this standard reply now to ALL such links requests. I will also post this on our website in the place that is quite obviously a magnet to marketeers on a bonus for website links, however remote or innappropriate. We do no longer post links to any other subjects other than history. In particular, local history, Hull�s history and British history, or sites of Hull and East Yorkshire specific interest. No Legal, no Medical, no Financial, no Family Advice, Marriage Advice, Child Welfare, Animal Welfare, Citizens Advice or Agony Aunt type links of any sort. And definitely No Products. No more. If you ever visit Hull, and are interested in our history, by all means, come and visit us. We are not unfriendly, nor unsympathetic, nor uncharitable. But neither are we mugs or a soft touch. Please, please, do not reply to this. Thank you. for and on behalf of The Sutton & Wawne Old School Museum www.suttonandwawnemuseum.org.uk |