Starting in August, 2017, Springwater Trails email is sent using a Google Group.  This has several advantages over our old way.

1. Officers can send emails to the group from their personal email address using your regular email client.
2. Recipients can use googlegroups.com to manage whether they want to receive emails.
3. Each email counts as a single message, allowing the group to send more than one message a day. Sometimes we happen to send two messages a day and Google mail limits us to a total of 500 recipients per day, which is almost exactly 2 messages.
4. Email addresses are not exposed to recipients, providing some privacy.

Currently we have set it up to allow only officers to send emails to the group.

To send an email

1. Open your personal email.
2. Compose an email the same way you always do.
3. Type springwater-trails@googlegroups.com into the To line.
4. Add a subject.  Note that the system will automatically add “Springwater Hiking -” to the start of the subject line before the recipients see the email.
   • In the case of hike announcements, select the title of the story on the website, press Ctrl-C and paste it (Ctrl-V) into the email Subject area.
5. Compose the email.
   • In the case of hike announcements, I open my browser and go to SpringwaterTrails.org, select the entire body of the announcement story, then press Ctrl-C to copy it. Then click in the body of the email and press Ctrl-V to paste it in. Edit the content if necessary:
     • I prefer to remove pictures since they are available on the website.
     • I often add a paragraph of “club news” at the start of the email.
     • If you find typos while reading the email, be sure to go back and correct the original post or event on the website.
6. Proofread the email one last time.
7. Press Send.

That’s it.

To reply to a Springwater Trails email.

1. To reply to the officer who sent the email, click on reply and type your comments as usual.  When done, press SEND.
2. To reply to the entire group, click on reply all. Please use this sparingly because everyone will receive your reply.