✨✨General Discussions

I set up a Listserv system at Wind Crest. We have 15 buildings with over 2,000 residents.

I have a resident manager for each building and a Listserv for the Managers and one for each building.

It is built on Google Groups. We have had zero privacy issues. I chose to not use groups.io, because it was too complicated. Some buildings moderate their Listserv. One is like a newsletter. some are wide open as in my building, where any building resident can post. We have 3 rules: (1) the listserv is not to be like Facebook, X, etc.; (2) Remember what your Mother told you that in polite company we don't discuss, money, politics, religion or sex; and (3) Follow George Washington's 11 rules of civility. Management was against it at first, because they didn't control it. But they now see that it creates community. Finally, most of our clubs and groups have a Listserv.

Charles Nadler

Wind Crest CCRC (Erickson Senior Living)

Highlands Ranch, Colorado

Yes, we have many subgroups and use many of the Groups.io features such as files and wiki.

Our community is expended to grow to 1200 IL units so we expect the listserv to be vital to all.

Groups.io is a bit cumbersome for about 12% of our members. We expect growing pains in trying to educate everyone. We have many people who are not yet residents on it as well.

We think we’ll easily receive enough sponsorships to keep it going.

Richard,

Since you have a paid account with groups.io, do you have subgroups to separate into interests like clubs or communities?

I have a groups.io as a read-only public unlisted archive of emails that I send to subscribers of my personal community "Info news" email list. No cost as no members other than me. (I believe the free limit is 100 members.) My email list also sends an email to the archive so that email is also a member of the groups.io database (with my name).

Linda Kilcrease

Resident of a CCRC

The Grandview in Bethesda, MD starting moving in heir first residents on November 17th last year. Our groups.io listserv went live on November 1. A generous future resident paid for the first year; other contributions received will cover the next two years.

The project was sponsored by our Computer/IT club with two club members offering to set it up. With just 250 new residents we have yet to have more volunteers get involved.

Each and every future member who must be a priority lister, reservist, or resident is verified before allowing them to join.

Initially all community posts are moderated. Club leaders are the heaviest users as they reach out to their club members often.

I’ve enjoyed reading all the posts here—so many thoughtful examples! It seems like communities really want residents to connect with each other and overcome isolation. I love the idea of a private Facebook–like group—but I do wonder about privacy or security challenges, especially if trying to include residents across multiple communities. 

Groups.io may have a nonprofit option. You should ask. Our community uses both Groups.10 and Google Groups. Groups.io is more user friendly. Google is free and decades old. Both offer levels of privacy that owners can specify.

A word of caution. Open groups are targets for spam and trolls. For security, you can set these systems to require inbound messages to be approved by a moderator. This feature can be selective, that is specific to each member of the group. You can grant reliable members unmoderated access.

You can also make the visibility restricted, as it is here on some ClubExpress forums.

Richmond Shreve

NaCCRA Board Member & VP

Forum Moderator

Enver,

It looks like you have set your Substack blog to private. This allows only those you authorize to sign in.

Richmond Shreve

NaCCRA Board Member & VP

Forum Moderator

Sorry, tried 4 times to long in with email and password used for this site but couldn't . That's my limit.

Leslie Durr

Our our Resident Advisory Council is basically a proxy for management. To wake up residence at our community I became a member of Substack. Today's post may be helpful to other VaCCRA and NaCCRA members. https://socratespatron.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/176676171/share-center

Groups.io is a good option but it costs a minimun if $20 per month.

Ann MacKay

Hi Bert,

I am a CCRC resident of Medford Leas in Medford, New Jersey. I have no social media accounts including Facebook. I deleted my Facebook account a couple of years ago since I was concerned about privacy. I am pretty savvy with computers but have noticed that manyMedford Leas residents do not use basic technology like Zoom. Is this generational? Is this widespread? My mother lived in an assisted living place in Maryland and paid less but good help with Zoom.

>Some residents who share an interest in technology within CCRCs have an online Google group.

How does one join this "Google" group? I manage a 12 resident tech help team and moderate two resident email distribution groups among other activities.

Bert Laurence, Channing House, Palo Alto CA

Facebook is one of many tools for informal online sharing of miscellaneous 'stuff'. Google Groups is a totally free service, and can work well. Groups.io offers a free and a paid (low-cost) service.

The Maryland residents association, MaCCRA, maintains a groups.io service but only a small fraction of the MaCCRA members are active online.

Some residents from several communities who share an interest in technology within CCRCs have an online Google group.

And, of course, NaCCRA forums can serve the same purpose nicely for residents who are NaCCRA members ...

Lots of options ....

Jim Fennessey

We had at least 2 buildings up and running during the pandemic at Wind Crest and they were working smoothly.

Someone asked if our listserv was up and running during COVID. Was it helpful? Given how smoothly the system runs now, I would imagine that in a pandemic shutdown situation, our listservs would be immensely helpful.

Channie Peters

Wind Crest (Erickson community in Denver)

At Windcrest, we have an entirely resident run listserv (email groups), one for each of our 15 buildings. Each building has a listserv manager. Residents can opt out if they do not want to receive any messages. These listservs are very active and are the way residents can communicate with other residents in their building (as a group, not individually) or send a message to the entire community. There is one manager who oversees the entire listserv system, so if a resident wants to get a message out to all 2,000 residents s/he can send that one message to the uber-manager for distribution to the managers of each building who then sends the message to all residents in that building. If a resident wants to send a message to just residents in his/her building s/he can send the message to that building's listserv manager for distribution to residents in just that one building. This has been a very effective, efficient communication system for residents. Management has no input or control over our system.

I appreciate your detailed response, especially the perfect metaphor. I have a lot to think about regarding whether I want to jump into this. All these responses are very helpful. I believe that as the younger Boomers come into CCRC's, engagement with apps will become more common.

As I read down these posts, the word "control" repeatedly emerges. Some describe what could be called "wheel and spoke" management. All functions of the community cycle through management, the center of the wheel. Those living on the outskirts of the spokes have no way to conveniently communicate with one another. I'm impressed that in some of the communities residents set up communication systems on their own.

Our facility is trying to help us connect to each with the Uniguest App. https://uniguest.com/community-apps/

Residents who use the app love it, but too few residents use it to make it effective. Uniguest has a search feature in which one can search for an identifier (bird watching, history, philosophy, hobbies, and everything else) to find others of like interest throughout the campus. It requires large numbers of residents to enter their interests in the app, and few have done so. We have the means but not the will. At least we are trying.

A discussion about this is in the book "Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift" addresses a few ways that residents set up sharing sites.

At Greenspring (also an Erickson Community), we have GRIX (Greenspring Resident Information Exchange), which is an email server operated by the Computer Club. Residents need to request access.

When a resident has a question or coment, they send an email to GRIX and the system forwards that message to residents who have subcribed. There is an option to recieve a daily composite message, rather than each individual message.

It's very useful for helping newer residents identify doctors or other service providers as well as promoting resident sponsored events and/or clubs.It's also used by many Resident Committee chairpersons to communicate about committee updates and announcements.

It's totally resident run, and management are not members, although they will sometimes communicate info by having a committee chair post a message.

At Wake Robin at Shelburne, Vermont, the non-profit residents' association sponsors a members-only (no administration) daily listserv, Wake Robin Connects. Any resident may post, everyone gets one daily email containing all posts. The platform, Electric Embers, costs us $15/month and four residents take turns monitoring posts to ensure they follow our guidelines (civility, no politics, no personal criticism, etc.) Most residents subscribe and it's become the most reliable way to share information with the most people possible.