Special message to Agent's Circle Members

[Admin]

Below is the original message we posted in regards to Agent's Circle. The bullet points all still hold true. Since then, Agent's Circle was shut down due to various reasons from the moderators and then re-opened later on. Our forum is almost 13 yrs old now and is not going anywhere. You can count on the group's posts and uploads to be privately maintained for future reference.

These comments also apply to COC and Helpy Hour members. Sharing screenshots from these groups with management is a common occurrence and why we allow our members to remain completely anonymous. The only person who knows a poster's identity is the administrator and I am the only administrator. I promise you that I share nothing on this site with anyone inside or outside our organization.


**ORIGINAL MESSAGE**

As many agents are also members of the Agent's Circle group on Facebook, I wanted to address the differences between our group and that group. Please understand that I am also a member of several Facebook agent groups and certainly find value in those groups. We are not competing against them in any format. Our forum is just uniquely different. Here are some of the differences:

1. We were founded in 2010 and are a very established forum. We have met with management and compliance in the past to make sure that our forum meets any guidelines that SF requires. While we are an agent-only forum, we are not trying to operate outside of any parameters set by SF. No one within State Farm or compliance has access to forum.
2. We are not a heavily moderated forum. Positivism is great but sometimes you also have to take a realistic approach to current trends and issues. That being said, we do not tolerate constant negativity and encourage positive input for the multitude of issues facing our agencies.
3. We have a healthy mix of agents on all of the various contracts.
4. You have the ability to be completely anonymous on our forum.
5. We are parked on private secure servers that I pay for. Facebook is not a private website. What you say on Facebook is being logged and cataloged for potential future reference.
6. Our forum is organized and categorized so that finding older posts is relatively easy.
7. Our forum is "all business". You won't find a lot of fluff or non-relevant posts.

I would encourage you to be a member of several groups. Each brings something different to the table. I also understand that the Facebook groups are free but they also have several moderators and there are no costs associated with running a Facebook group. I am the only moderator for our forum and there is a tremendous amount of administrative time spent on it plus the costs of the software and hosting of the site. One single good idea over the course of a year easily justifies the $11 required to join.


If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me at: sfagentgeoffdarst@gmail.com.