Hi All,
A site administrator asked me for ideas for setting up a community
online groups site. The requirements included the following.
Community Committee news and updates, sometimes a lot.
Could be about issues discussed and decisions made,
plus meeting minutes, meeting dates, a list of committee
members, repairs & maintenance wish list, and council links.
Facility for local community groups like church, hall,
playcentre, scouts, and sports groups.
Important not to overwhelm people with email!
Here are some ideas. Feel free to add your own comments about what has
worked for you.
You could set up a site for the entire community, and then start a
public announcement group for the Community Committee. The committee
could then post updates to that group, and community members could
subscribe for email updates, or just visit the site to find them.
You could also add some content about the locality, and Community
Committee on the Home page and About page. You could offer to set up
public announcement or discussion groups on your site, for these
organisations. People would be free to subscribe or not. If the groups
are public, they will not have to log in.
I'd suggest using email addresses that you already have those carefully.
When you start groups, pick the people you think will be most likely to
want to participate actively. Contact those people to check that they
want to be in a group, and invite them to join. Attention to engaging
people will pay off later.
If your committee has lots of news, you could set things up the way CST has.
http://cst.org.nz
They have groups for particular types of announcement, like job vacancies.
http://cst.org.nz/groups/job_vacancies
People who are interested in these can subscribe to get them straight
away. Those who prefer less email can subscribe to a weekly summary.
http://cst.org.nz/groups/teharakeke
I hope this helps.
with regards,
