Community Covid support - best comms tools
Discussion
I live in a rural location with a small community spread over a wide area. We all use email but many are of the age where Facebook, WhatsApp and even smart phones are not in use. We've started a community email list so people needing help can ask for support (picking up medication, dropping food off on the doorstep, buying newspapers etc) but 'reply all' to 45 email addresses is a bit clumsy.
E.g., If I want help I 'reply all' saying something like, "I've run out of milk. If anyone's going to the village could they pick some up for me please?"
It's got the potential to be a bit of a cluster. Any top tips for communicating effectively when you only have a list of email addresses? We don't really want to have a central coordinator. A WhatsApp group would be ideal but it's not going to work, where the people who are most likely to need help are unable to use the technology.
Thanks.
E.g., If I want help I 'reply all' saying something like, "I've run out of milk. If anyone's going to the village could they pick some up for me please?"
It's got the potential to be a bit of a cluster. Any top tips for communicating effectively when you only have a list of email addresses? We don't really want to have a central coordinator. A WhatsApp group would be ideal but it's not going to work, where the people who are most likely to need help are unable to use the technology.
Thanks.
If the community really struggles with technology, back to old school would seem to be an option.
How about green piece of paper in window / door = I'm all good : Red = I need help.....and then a rota of exercise walks that walk past every house for the younger and more able in the community. If it's a red, you knock and stand back, then have a chat.
WhatsApp is really want you want as you say....even if it only covers 80% of the 45 it would help.
How about green piece of paper in window / door = I'm all good : Red = I need help.....and then a rota of exercise walks that walk past every house for the younger and more able in the community. If it's a red, you knock and stand back, then have a chat.
WhatsApp is really want you want as you say....even if it only covers 80% of the 45 it would help.
As you've correctly ascertained, the smart and free solution here is some sort of real time chat/collaboration tool. Be it whatsapp, discord, slack, facebook group or whatever.
However if your user base is limited to only being able to use email then I think what you probably want to do is create a publicly accessible email distribution list. I know some CRM tools can do this so maybe you want to check something like hubspot which has a free tier. People can then send an email to one address and it goes to everyone. It's a bit 'noisy' as everyone will get everything, open to abuse if the address used gets out into the wild and I suspect some spam filters will see some people not receiving it. But it is de-centralised and needs little to no admin once setup.
I suspect hubspot doesn't let anyone send to the list though.
If one user has an Office 365 business account for email then I know you can setup an email distribution list in there with external recipients. I use this for a family email address myself, mother, brother, wife etc. Anyone can email family@mydomain.com and it goes straight to mum@google.com, brother@hotmail.com etc.
Otherwise if someone wants to spend £50 and has a bit of technical know how then you can buy a cheap hosting package like this https://www.clook.net/products/shared-0/ together with a domain name from anywhere and you'll be able to setup mail forwarders for an address that will send to everyone and anyone. Most of these cheap hosting providers (including the one i linked to) use a piece of software called cPanel to admin things through a web browser. It has lots of packages and add-ons that cover things like basic free CRM and email digests which could work for you. You do need a bit of familiarity with configuring software to use it though, although there are plenty of youtube videos since it is so ubiquitous.
However if your user base is limited to only being able to use email then I think what you probably want to do is create a publicly accessible email distribution list. I know some CRM tools can do this so maybe you want to check something like hubspot which has a free tier. People can then send an email to one address and it goes to everyone. It's a bit 'noisy' as everyone will get everything, open to abuse if the address used gets out into the wild and I suspect some spam filters will see some people not receiving it. But it is de-centralised and needs little to no admin once setup.
I suspect hubspot doesn't let anyone send to the list though.
If one user has an Office 365 business account for email then I know you can setup an email distribution list in there with external recipients. I use this for a family email address myself, mother, brother, wife etc. Anyone can email family@mydomain.com and it goes straight to mum@google.com, brother@hotmail.com etc.
Otherwise if someone wants to spend £50 and has a bit of technical know how then you can buy a cheap hosting package like this https://www.clook.net/products/shared-0/ together with a domain name from anywhere and you'll be able to setup mail forwarders for an address that will send to everyone and anyone. Most of these cheap hosting providers (including the one i linked to) use a piece of software called cPanel to admin things through a web browser. It has lots of packages and add-ons that cover things like basic free CRM and email digests which could work for you. You do need a bit of familiarity with configuring software to use it though, although there are plenty of youtube videos since it is so ubiquitous.
I'd go with a Facebook group personally. It's free and you may be surprised how many older people are already had an account, my 75 year old mother and 70+ yearr old inlaws both use it for keeping in touch with family.
They're also all on WhatsApp for the same reason so don't necessarily discount that, but the main limitation might be those who don't have smartphones.
Slack is free for the basic version, and you invite people to a group by e-mail so fairly easy for them to set up.
Skype and Zoom are also free and really good but more for 1:1 or a planned online meeting which I don't think is quite what you're after.
They're also all on WhatsApp for the same reason so don't necessarily discount that, but the main limitation might be those who don't have smartphones.
Slack is free for the basic version, and you invite people to a group by e-mail so fairly easy for them to set up.
Skype and Zoom are also free and really good but more for 1:1 or a planned online meeting which I don't think is quite what you're after.
BigTZ4M said:
However if your user base is limited to only being able to use email then I think what you probably want to do is create a publicly accessible email distribution list. I know some CRM tools can do this so maybe you want to check something like hubspot which has a free tier. People can then send an email to one address and it goes to everyone. It's a bit 'noisy' as everyone will get everything, open to abuse if the address used gets out into the wild and I suspect some spam filters will see some people not receiving it. But it is de-centralised and needs little to no admin once setup.
If one user has an Office 365 business account for email then I know you can setup an email distribution list in there with external recipients. I use this for a family email address myself, mother, brother, wife etc. Anyone can email family@mydomain.com and it goes straight to mum@google.com, brother@hotmail.com etc.
Thanks - that sounds like the best solution given the tech appetite.If one user has an Office 365 business account for email then I know you can setup an email distribution list in there with external recipients. I use this for a family email address myself, mother, brother, wife etc. Anyone can email family@mydomain.com and it goes straight to mum@google.com, brother@hotmail.com etc.
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