I’m part of a volunteer group that (with permission) builds and maintains trails in a local park. A year ago, someone set up a gmail address and a google group. I find both very difficult (not at all intuitive) to use and quickly develop a headache when trying to use these online. Also, people don’t seem to understand what a google group is…

Is there a better alternative?

Facebook can work ok for this sort of thing

Yahoo groups too, similar to Google but IME a little simpler to admin, or a good old fashioned majordomo mailing list if you can host it.

There’s another site set up for clubs to do that sort of thing too, but need to get the url from my pc.

Yahoo Groups have a worse interface and cover their group mails with advertising. Moved mine over to Google Groups a couple of years ago and it’s much better.

I don’t really see what the problem is with them, they can be used like a traditional majordomo-type list service if you want (no need for any account), or with a web interface, digest mails, etc.

Does feel a little old hat now – facebook groups (as said) are what a lot of these groups use these days.

We tried Yahoo – decided it was Yapoo and moved back to Google groups.

http://groupspaces.com/ is the other one I was thinking of – supposed to be a “1 stop shop” (aaargh!) for running a club.

If everyone has a gmail account then why not use Google+ (I’m assuming Google groups is something different?)?

Set up a private Community (similar to Facebook groups) then people can post stuff on the Community page. You could also use Hangouts to message or video conferance too. Also integrates with Google Drive, Maps, Youtube etc nicely.

G+ is much better visually to Facebook and the mobile app is much better too.

Thanks for the suggestions.

A lot of the members don’t use gmail, so I’d say G+ is out. I don’t like using the gmail interface at all, either.

I don’t do facebook, so that’s out! 😡

If yahoo puts a bunch of ads on the emails, that would not be what I want.

My guess is that google in making their interface smartphone and tablet friendly. But I’m doing my stuff on a PC, so its cumbersome to use that way.

Will look into groupspaces!