To all group leaders...
I've added a new discussions forum here. The forum is visible only to HIU3A members who have logged-in to the site. It is not visible to the public.
It allows groups that don't physically meet to continue to discuss matters - albeit at a slow pace.
For example, someone from a book group could start a discussion on this month's book by adding their views on it and inviting comments from other members of the group.
Any member can start a discussion by creating a new topic using the simple form at the bottom of the Discussions page. There is a link to subscribe to the Discussions forum at the top right of the Discussions page. Subscribing means you'll get an automatic email notification of new topics.
Members can then reply to a topic, reply to a reply, etc. It's a lot better than email because everyone participating gets to see the entire discussion so far. Members can subscribe to (and unsubscribe from) individual topics to get automatic email notification of new replies.
When members log in to the members' area of the site, they can go to the forums page by clicking the Forums link in the 'News & articles' menu.
I'd expect all participants to be courteous and considerate to other members, but I'll be monitoring the forum to make sure it is used effectively.
There is a brief description of how to use the forums - with some illustrations - in the web site walkthrough here. You can also take a look at the Cycling forum to see how we use it to organise our rides (note that all our topics appear in grey because I have closed them; you can, however read the replies).
Please let me know if I can help your group use the facility. I've also started the first discussion with a topic inviting questions about using the forum.
Andy