Airport Support Groups - Group Email?

Let us know which route you decide to go.

I've made the jump to CoolLists. Setting it up was simple, the response
process required from the invited member/subscriber was simple, and it's
free.

It's hard to beat that combination!

Thanks to all who responded.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
The main drawback of Yahoo Groups is the requirement to "join" the group
through a rather extensive series of web-based forms. I know a lot of our
old-timers (and some of our young-timers, too!) regard using the internet as
a giant pain in the butt, and I fear they would take one look at it and
throw their hands up in frustration.

Bzzzzt! Wrong. Yahoo groups can be used, and subscribed to, like a normal
E-mail list, if the user chooses to. There's no need to use the Web
interface at all. Using, for example, the "pipercherokee" group, you can
subscribe to the list by sending a message to:

unsubscribe by sending a message to:

and post messages by sending them to:


There's absolutely no reason to use the web interface. I always use the
web interface, because it's really not that hard, but you don't have to.

--- Jay


--
__!__
Jay and Teresa Masino ___(_)___
http://www2.ari.net/jmasino ! ! !
http://www.oceancityairport.com
http://www.oc-adolfos.com

A few other things... Using a yahoo group gives each individual the
choice whether they want to participate using the web interface or the
e-mail interface. Also, the owner/administrator of the group can "bulk
subscribe" a large number of participants. If I remember right, you can
"invite" them, which allows them to opt out, or you can just subscribe
them. If you pick the latter, I believe they limit you to some number a
day. This is in an effort to prevent high volume spammers from using the
service.

--- Jay


--
__!__
Jay and Teresa Masino ___(_)___
http://www2.ari.net/jmasino ! ! !
http://www.oceancityairport.com
http://www.oc-adolfos.com

Check out

http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/pnwflying

Run by our ownDavid Herman.
It doesn't email but it gives a message board and lots of other features.
A big advantage of starting a site there is that it is free.


HTH

Tony

--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE

In article ,
(Jay Honeck) wrote:

A year ago I started an airport support group called "Friends of Iowa
City Airport" to help save our threatened airport. It has now grown
to over 170 members, and sending memos, updates and emails to such a
large group has become unwieldy.

For a variety of reasons I would like to stick with a web-based
(rather than Outlook or Outlook Express email) solution. I have looked
at using Yahoo Groups, but have rejected them as being overly
complicated to "join." (Many of our members are getting up there in
years, and even basic email can be a challenge for them, let alone
trying to figure out how to "join" a Yahoo group.)

I am looking for a way to send "group" email updates to large numbers
of members. Unfortunately, my ISP's (Mediacom) group email software
is so laced with anti-Spam measures that it is essentially useless to
me. (The killer: It limits the number in a group to 25 or less, etc.)

What say the group? Anyone got any recommendations? Is there a group
email site on the web that is flexible and powerful enough for what I
need?

Thanks!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Actually, Tony (and Jay), smartgroups can be accessed via their web front
end, OR if users prefer can receive messages via email. I like that
flexibility. Members do, however, have to sign up. That's a two-step
process: first you have to register with smartgroups, then you have to
"join" the particular group(s) you want to participate in.

Overall, smartgroups has been pretty good. The things I like about it:
1. it's free
2. there are no pop-ups, poo-unders, or other ads inserted within your
messages; there is just one small banner ad at the top of your page - I can
live with that.
3. users can choose whether to access mesages via the website or through
email
4. there are other free features such as photo albums, file uploads, a group
event calendar, even "voting"
5. it's simple to set up, simple for users to join (even techno-phobic
geezers, for the most part)
6. to a limited degree, it can be "hacked" to incorporate things that they
hadn't really designed into it (more on that below)

The things I don't like about it:
1. in the past, they occasionally went offline for a few hours, sometimes
for a few days, with no warning at all. Fortunately, they seem to have
addressed the problem, and they have not gone offline for any significant
time in nearly a year
2. they do not provide any meaningful support
3. it's limited in some ways - if you have ambitions to turn it into a fancy
website, it's generally not possible in any simple way

Overall, it's a good alternative to Yahoo groups. Before starting it, I
looked all over for something that would meet my needs but came with the
minimum of hassles.

You might want to take a look at the group I started, "Pacific Northwest
Flying"

Note that there are two ways to access the site now:
1. the original (old) URL which is a direct link to the smartgroups-based
discussion groups:
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/pnwflying
(this is the standard way smartgroups expects you to access the group)

The sign-up process is not particularly difficult; click the "First Time
Visitors" button for all a user needs to know.

and....

2. a new, more broadly designed "portal" site I recently created, which
incorporates the smartgroups discussion group into a larger site that has
other "sections":
http://www.pacificnorthwestflying.com/

Stop by and check out the setup sometime (even if you do live back there in
the flatlands

If you have any questions about setting up a group feel free to ping me.
Good luck.


David Herman
N6170T 1965 Cessna 150E
Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Visit the Pacific Northwest Flying Forum:
http://www.pacificnorthwestflying.com/




"tony roberts" wrote in message
news:nospam-9F6235.17394811092004@shawnews...
Check out

http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/pnwflying

Run by our ownDavid Herman.
It doesn't email but it gives a message board and lots of other features.
A big advantage of starting a site there is that it is free.


HTH

Tony

--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE

In article ,
(Jay Honeck) wrote:

A year ago I started an airport support group called "Friends of Iowa
City Airport" to help save our threatened airport. It has now grown
to over 170 members, and sending memos, updates and emails to such a
large group has become unwieldy.

For a variety of reasons I would like to stick with a web-based
(rather than Outlook or Outlook Express email) solution. I have looked
at using Yahoo Groups, but have rejected them as being overly
complicated to "join." (Many of our members are getting up there in
years, and even basic email can be a challenge for them, let alone
trying to figure out how to "join" a Yahoo group.)

I am looking for a way to send "group" email updates to large numbers
of members. Unfortunately, my ISP's (Mediacom) group email software
is so laced with anti-Spam measures that it is essentially useless to
me. (The killer: It limits the number in a group to 25 or less, etc.)

What say the group? Anyone got any recommendations? Is there a group
email site on the web that is flexible and powerful enough for what I
need?

Thanks!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 11 Sep 2004 11:44:29 -0700, (Jay Honeck) wrote
in ::

Anyone got any recommendations?


http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/

Mailman, the GNU Mailing List Manager
Mailman is free software for managing electronic mail discussion and
e-newsletter lists. Mailman is integrated with the web, making it easy
for users to manage their accounts and for list owners to administer
their lists. Mailman supports built-in archiving, automatic bounce
processing, content filtering, digest delivery, spam filters, and
more. See the features page for details.
Mailman is free software, distributed under the GNU General Public
License. Mailman is written in the Python programming language, with a
little bit of C code for security.

The name of this software is spelled Mailman with a capital leading M
and a lowercase second m. It is incorrect to spell it "MailMan" (i.e.
you should not use StudlyCaps).

Current Version
Version 2.1.5, (released on 15-May-2004) is the current released
version of Mailman, in production at many sites.

Acknowledgements
Mailman's lead developer is Barry Warsaw who can be contacted at
.

Thanks go to Control.com for their sponsorship of new Mailman 2.1
features such as the topic filters, external membership sources, and
"virtual" mailing lists. Also, a huge thanks goes out to my employer
Zope Corporation for their support, as well as the list of
contributors, bug hunters, big idea people, and others who have helped
immensely with Mailman's development.

Larry Dighera writes:

On 11 Sep 2004 11:44:29 -0700, (Jay Honeck) wrote
in ::

Anyone got any recommendations?


http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/

I'm looking for the same thing (automated email lists) for 3 web sites
I maintain. I don't see how Mailman works for most of us because you
basically have to own the web server to install the software. I think
what Jay and myself, and probably others, are looking for is a free or
reasonable-fee service that provides for web-based email lists.

Bob, take a look at my post above re smartgroups.com.


--
David Herman
N6170T 1965 Cessna 150E
Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Visit the Pacific Northwest Flying Forum:
http://www.pacificnorthwestflying.com/


"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...
Larry Dighera writes:

On 11 Sep 2004 11:44:29 -0700, (Jay Honeck) wrote
in ::

Anyone got any recommendations?


http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/

I'm looking for the same thing (automated email lists) for 3 web sites
I maintain. I don't see how Mailman works for most of us because you
basically have to own the web server to install the software. I think
what Jay and myself, and probably others, are looking for is a free or
reasonable-fee service that provides for web-based email lists.