If you're a member of a club, what do they use for communication?

[HelpsHeal]

I mean a sports or hobby club run by volunteers?

We used to have a monthly newsletter (originally printed and posted out and then moved to email) which was a lot of work to produce and which members didn't really seem to read.

More recently, most communication has been through a FB group, but not everyone uses FB and information is released in bits and pieces and hard to find if you're looking for something in particular.

Members have the perception that there no communication, which isn't true but it could definitely be improved.

Members range from 80+ to early 20s so it's hard to find something that will suit everyone.

What do your clubs use?

You can make broadcast only WhatsApp groups where only admin can post. We use that for announcements and important stuff, then have a general chitchat group, a committee group for organising, and Facebook/Insta/website/national sport info page for people outside the club to contact us and find information.

Ds's club uses Spond and it works really well as you can segment messages (so for instance only Junior boys and their adult sees them) and do events, polls and other bits

Mostly Muzodo, or WhatsApp

Email, Slack or Signal - it’s similar to WhatsApp but the max group size is much bigger. I think Slack might work for what you need with announcements?
You can search in WhatsApp chats btw, so things don’t get lost.

DD rugby club use Spond for official notices and fixtures calendar.
What's app for informal chatter, car sharing arrangement, sharing match day photos etc.

Email officially for one, actual magazine for the other - plus Facebook

Spond, ThinkSmart portal, WhatsApp, email plus booking software.

I think Spond works best as key dates are there (and go straight into an electronic calendar, if you use one) so the associated WhatsApp can be for other things and you don’t lose key dates / times in it.

But for an older demographic you might need to supplement with email or at least provide some tech support (and options for those without a smartphone / tablet).

I run a running club (with others).
We send out a weekly email, mainly to share details of runs for that week (but also snippets of news or maybe an interesting article).

We also have a closed FB group (members only) where we would update run details if needed (ie - if we needed to meet in a different place, or cancel), and where general conversation takes place.
Members who don't run all the time with us (and some who have moved away) really like this, and say it makes them still feel connected. We only have one regular runner who isn't on FB, so if there's any 'must know' information, we just text her.

It seems to work very well - all the info is easily accessible by the email, and all the casual stuff is there if you want it. The email is sent through mailchimp, so people can unsubscribe if they want to, and we just send them a link to subscribe when they join up.

@HelpsHeal yes WhatsApp can do that. We have a class WhatsApp for DD's class where only the teachers can post, parents can't. Don't know how they set it up, but must be possible.

Even in a std WhatsApp group you can set it to admin only posting. That's useful.

I help run a group where we use an fb group and page only. The page posts the "official" info into the group and everyone else can converse however they like.
in my experience, you will never get everyone reading updates etc.

I find fb groups are fine as you can separate threads of info. In WhatsApp it all gets lost as there isn't necessarily a stream of conversation and can be, as you said, littered with unnecessary comments.

My kids are part of sports groups. They have WhatsApp groups for each team, one WhatsApp is open and full of little johnny can't make it, and admin saying can you message me directly and sometimes complete spam like, support my fundraising for something completely unrelated or find my cat or other rubbish. The other 2 are limited to admin only posts and they work much better. They also use a sports app where the admins can invite them to training and games and it requests and registers responses. They can also send general messages.

Scouts use Online Scout Manager which advertises itself as being suitable for other groups too.

Has events that you can sign up to, agree to payment being taken and sends reminders of you haven’t responded to say if you are interested or not.

Another group uses Slack with different channels for core members and WhatsApp for more casual participants.

Email.

With the range of people in your group, I think the only answer is to offer more than one option.

I belong to something where many of the members are retired - they send e-mails with any information, and print it out for the 2 people who don't have e-mails.
I belong to something else where information usually goes into the closed FB group. Anyone not on FB is given a "buddy" who volunteers to tell the odd person who refuses to go on FB, what has happened - up to them how they do that. I know one lady phones another to tell her.
I find WhatsApp easiest myself - a 'broadcast' group where information is only put out by the admins...... people are free to form a more 'chatty' group themselves if people want to arrange to share lifts, or just comment on things, but that is optional and everyone gets the message from the broadcast group. WhatsApp can be on your phone or tablet, or laptop ot PC, so most people can access, and if there is anyone who has none of these, you will usually find a way round for one person. Don't "not use" the most efficient way for 99% of the group, because one or two people refuse to use it.

Fb. All our members from 20s-70s are on the private fb group.

FB. Most members are on there, and we have a lot of people who only have a profile to access the page. It’s a very social page.

Our club secretary does keep a small list of people who won’t use it but want to be kept informed.

Our local camera club has a group on Facebook with announcements only, and a Whatsapp group, where announcements are posted, but people also can chat and comment on things or ask about something. We don't have lots of messages there, though, and the ones we have are mostly questions about some Photoworks tools and they are answered by links to tutorials

Yes, you can set up a WhatsApp group so that only the admin can post.

One of DS’s sports clubs uses WhatsApp, two others use Heja.

Beavers, so small group, Messenger and Facebook for parents plus paper letters for consent etc

Facebook page and pdf newsletter sent by email (and hard copy to some real old stagers).

God I have lots x4 kids
WhatsApp
Pitchero
Spond
And email
It's a full time job