Ask for permission to send one specific kind of message, not for permission to email them forever about everything. The person at the door is deciding whether to give you an address. They will say yes more often if they know what they are agreeing to. For example: Want a note when the next supper club is scheduled? About one email a month, and you can leave with one click. That line tells the person what they get, how often they get it, and how to leave.

This is a practical checklist for a small host, not legal advice. The rules differ by place and by the kind of email you send, so check what applies where you live and where your attendees live. These habits keep most hosts out of trouble and keep people on the list:

• Ask before you add anyone. Do not copy people from a business card, a guest list or a phone contact into your email tool without asking.
• Say what you will send and how often, at the moment they give the address.
• Put an unsubscribe link in every message you send to the list, including the first one.
• Honor an unsubscribe the same day. Remove the address from every list you control, not just the one the message came from.
• Keep proof of each opt-in: the date, the place, the sign-up sheet or form they used, and the words they saw next to the box.

The sign-up should take less time than the thank-you. Put one line and one tick box on the sign-up sheet, or one screen on a tablet, or one QR code on a card at the exit. The box should start empty. A box that is already ticked gives you an address the person did not choose to give you, and it causes complaints later.

1. Put the sign-up near the exit, not in the middle of the room. People are leaving and deciding how they feel, and that is when they say yes.
2. Use one line of text with a tick box, and name what they get: the next date, and an update about the group.
3. Offer a QR code on a card as well, for people who prefer to sign up later on their phone.
4. Send a short welcome message within a day that says what the list is for and includes the unsubscribe link.

Pick one sign-up place and keep it the same across events. A host who uses a sheet at one event, a QR code at the next and a verbal ask at the third ends up with three piles of addresses and no clear record of which pile had which consent. One place, one wording and one dated record keeps the proof simple.

Here is a worked example with numbers you can copy into your own planning. Say 60 people attend a workshop. At the door, 35 of them tick the box. Later that week, you post a QR code in your group chat, and 9 more people sign up from their phones. You now have 44 addresses from one event, and the list is 44 people who chose to be on it.

Send the welcome message. Say 3 people unsubscribe straight away and 1 replies to say the date was wrong. You keep 40 people who want the next message. That is a smaller list than 44, and a better one. Sending to 40 people who want it gets more replies than sending to 44 people where some never agreed.

If you run your events on Connections, the event reminder emails it sends include an unsubscribe link. The link is built into the message, so you do not need to add it by hand for those emails. Your own messages to a list you keep elsewhere still need their own link, and the same rule applies to any tool you use: a person who asks to leave is removed from the list the same day.

Consent can also be withdrawn in conversation. If someone at the next event says please stop emailing me, remove them that day and tell them it is done. Do not wait for the list cleanup to happen. A person who has asked to leave and still gets a message will remember that, and the message is the proof of the failure.

A list gets worse over time if nobody tends it. Set aside 20 minutes after each event to do three things. Remove any bounced address, which means the email could not be delivered. Merge duplicates, so one person with two addresses does not get two copies. And write down the date of each sign-up source, so you can answer the question where did this address come from if anyone asks.

Do not import a list of people you met but never asked. Send them an invitation to join the list instead, and let them say yes. A short list of people who asked to be there beats a long one that spends your first message on complaints.

• How to get more people to RSVP to your event
• How to follow up after an event, step by step
• How to put your events calendar on your website and socials

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