Email "distribution list"...

[#1]

Your thoughts please....

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Scenario: Small church wishes to:

-be able to send out emails to a list of people (less than 30),

- without everyone knowing everyone else's email address.

- Possibly want to have up to, say, 6 different lists.

- Emails sending needs to be simple: for example, send emails to a dummy email address, which then forwards them.

- Not "spammable", only limited people allowed to send the emails

- Preferably be free

- There will not be a lot of traffic.

I can think of several ways:

Simplest is for individuals to just "BCC" the emails to a local, private, list of emails. Downsides: list of PersonA may not match list of PersonB; several people need to learn how to manage their own email distribution lists; fiddly to send emails

Another way is to set up a "dummy email account", whose purpose in life is to accept emails, and forward them to a pre-defined list of emails. A technically savvy person can maintain the email list. Just send an email to that email address, and it gets forwarded. Downside: ANYONE can send an email to that distribution address. (Obvious spam CAN be filtered)

Use someone like Mailchimp: centrally managed emails list. From what I read, (BICBW) only one person (for the free version) can send the emails; It seems that you have to use the MailChimp website to send the emails - so over-complicated.

Is there something LIKE MailChimp, but rather than having to use the website to send the emails, can just reflect incoming emails from designated senders? So a relatively simple email forwarder, but with a level of simple "security" to limit who can originate the emails.

Paul

[#2]

Hi Paul,

Does the church have its own email domain?

If yes, who administers it?

If the church has its own email domain (for example @daresburycofe.org.uk ) it should be possible for the system administrator to set up and manage forwarding lists, the ilk of ...

• list1@daresburycofe.co.uk
• list2@daresburycofe.co.uk

That might not facilitate the restriction of who can send, except by knowledge that the addresses exists.

The merits are...

• It is all in-house
• There are no incremental costs
• It is an easy enough solution
• Sender's domains will not see this as bulk emailing

On thing to consider, whatever method you use is facilitation of a means for addressees to "unsubscribe".

[#3]

>> Does the church have its own email domain?

It does, and 100% unsure who manages, but I can ask.

Indeed, we could set up some lists, the 2 issues I see are: (a) does the church email setup allow any form of 'auto-responders' to run the list?; (b) The fact that anyone can still send emails could still be an issue.... But your plus-points are very valid, thank you.

As far as 'unsubscribing', it's a small enough group, we can just tell people to "send an email to xxxx" if they want out.