Advice needed on setting up a private residents association website

[peanut]

I now have a solution Google Website Forum Groups ......as suggested byXJWMX thank you XJWMX your suggestion was spot on and proved to be just the ticket .

Hope there is someone out there that can advise me about how best to go about putting a group of 7x residents in touch with each other on the net safely .

I wish to set up some sort of simple basic web forum so that 7x mostly elderly residents can discuss common issues about their Residents Association issues safely and securely possibly without needing complicated ID and password logins etc.

The residents association consists of the residents of 7x private properties on a private estate (of which I am one). I want to provide the means for us all to be able to message one another on the net and also distribute and store common information such as minutes of resident meetings, meeting dates, information that effects all residents etc .

Yes we could all do this by giving out all our email address but there are several very important reasons why this approach would not work.
Firstly some of the residents will probably be reluctant to give out their personal email addresses to all the other residents.
Secondly if personal email address books are shared there would be an extremely high risk of sharing trogans and viruses via address books .

Thirdly and perhaps most important of all there would be no guarantee that private messaging between certain residents would not occur that would exclude certain other residents and not everyone getting put in the picture so to speak. ..........Yes there are cliques amongst any group of people even neighbours

So what format would you suggest most appropriate ? A DIY website ? Facebook group? Google group? A free ready made forum website ? whatever it is it must be simple to use

 

[xjwmx]

Google group seems like the answer. If you're worried about existing email addresses, instruct them to make a new Google ID to join the group with. About the best you can do, I think.

 

[willis]

Our neighborhood stays connected through a mobile app called "Nextdoor ". I live in town though and we have roughly 60-70 homes in our neighborhood. We can also connect with other nearby neighborhoods if we choose so individually. We can post general comments, for sale adds, notices, or direct messages amongst each other. I has come in quite handy when we have had security or police issues in the area a few time this year already. We also do many neighborhood events throughout the year, so it's great for those notices too. It's all what you want to put into it though. I like being connected in my community, so it's a great tool for me.

 

[peanut]

thanks for the suggestions .

+xjwmx
Google does seem the obvious choice as most of us seem to have a Google email acddress but creating a second email address would definitely be too confusing for most of these residents.
For the past year or so Google have foisted this Google+ onto us which means everything is now linked together and you have to be 'signed' in to use any of Googles services like Youtube etc . Having 2x email addresses would require them to keep logging out and logging in twice every time they wished to check messages and use other google services ...nightmare .

+Willis
again a seemingly good solution however these are elderly folk and the majority definitely do not do texting on their cellfones as a first choice to communicate with the World. (I personally hate using cellfones with my huge fingers ) The main problem with using this format is there would be no central record of information and previous messages and I'm not sure how easy it would be to send a simultaneous message to 7x cellfones. Sending any scanned information like legal notices etc would be impossible also.


This solution has to be suitable for running a Residents Management Company with which is probably going to require a computer based solution.

 

[Michaelo]

Try mailchimp, I use this to email out to members of a geotechnical group of 200+ members, the confidentiality of the email addresses reside with one person, great email platform

 

[peanut]

Try mailchimp, I use this to email out to members of a geotechnical group of 200+ members, the confidentiality of the email addresses reside with one person, great email platform

thanks Mick good suggestion however it is still going to be very vulnerable to individual email address books and thus viruses .Its really just a cut down version of Google or Yahoo mail by the sound of it.

The more I think about it the more I think this solution needs to be effectively a forum like this one is.

Somewhere where a select group of members can convese with one another, upload images , ask advice , announce news etc but everbody will see every post ( ie no private messaging.) nothing hidden.
It would be good to have a time limited edit period with cutoff to avoid malicious posts or posts being edited and deleted.

Each of the residents apply to join their online Forum with their regular email addresses although they will be kept private from other members at all times .

By using a Forum based system different topics can be introduced to keep important stuff seperate from chit chat .
The more I think about this the more I like the idea of a forum .

Now the question is how easy or difficult is it to construct a ready made Forum template and host it online ??? heres where I am going to need some expert IT help and advice . Surely there must be somebody on this huge forum that has experience of working in this area

 

[YamadudeXS650C]

An admirable organizational thought.

Might I suggest you find a place, like your residence, perhaps, where the individuals could congregate in person. You could serve tea and cookies. The social benefits of the personal interactions could ultimately be as significant as your current goals. There is much research that predicts such an outcome.

 

[TwoManyXS1Bs]

Agree. Plus, you'll ensure that comments and gripes won't be coming from folks typing in their underwear...

 

[peanut]

An admirable organizational thought.

Might I suggest you find a place, like your residence, perhaps, where the individuals could congregate in person. You could serve tea and cookies. The social benefits of the personal interactions could ultimately be as significant as your current goals. There is much research that predicts such an outcome.

yes ...naturally it is always best to have Residents meetings in person and we already have this . Our residents Association has been in existance for 22 years since I first set it up .
However we have now moved on to a new situation which requires a more convenient, fair and robust system to complement the existing residents meetings.

Shortly we will be forming a Residents Management Company (a Limited Company registered at Companies House). This is because the original owner of the private road that supplies our private estate is going to be gifting ownership of the private lane and surrounding land to all of the 7x residents free with an additional £1000 gift for our assocated legal expenses .

There is a lot of important legal documentation letters, questions, notices, and other written stuff that needs to be securely delivered on a daily basis to every resident. It is obviously not practical to try and get all 7x families together in someones house every day to disseminate information and discuss daily developments.

So now you see why we need a Residents Forum !.... to support our new Residents Management Company and to make life easier for all the residents..

Now having explained all that ......phew.... I can tell you that I have found an excellent solution earlier this week.

I have now set up a Google Group Forum as suggested by XJWMX ..... thanks buddy

It is completely free to set up and free to run . It is a 'By Invitation only ' group and as such will not be accessible on the net to anyone other than those residents that have been invited and given membership. It is a simple Forum that is private , secure and easy to use. All the forum group settings are changable to suit our requirements and my idea is to set all residents as Moderators of the group. That way everybody will have equal access and control and input into our group and nothing can ever be underhand or exclude anyone.

Naturally we will still talk to one another every day as we always have when we walk or drive past past each others houses to enter and exit our community estate and of course over garden fences as neighbours.