Oh, please tell me how to handle this. I'm fuming!

[Sk8ermaiden]

Remind has been excellent, both swimteam and the gymnastics team use it. It can be accessed online (from a computer/tablet) or via smartphone app, OR you can have it forward each message as a text to you. And I think they're regular texts, not media texts, so maybe not a problem for dumb phones? Not sure though. 

 

But I completely agree! You can never please everyone. Swim team has such a HUGE problem with this that they FB, email, and Remind EVERYTHING, and people still complain that they don't know things. Meanwhile, the alerts in triplicate for each bit of info is driving me craaaazy. 

[daijobu]

1.  Volunteers who organize things for my kids are nearly saints, and if they want to maintain boundaries to get the job done, I'm fine with that.  

 

2.  I don't like FB, but I'm in a FB group because it provides me with valuable information.  The gal who created the group had her own reasons for choosing FB, and I made the compromise to join.  

 

3.  People in this thread keep writing about some mysterious way of getting email notifications from one's FB group, so I no longer need to log in and check every day.  Can someone dumb this down, step by step, so I can understand how to enjoy this lovely feature?  Right now, if I look at the top of the group there is a button that reads "Notifications."  When I click this button, "All posts" is bolded.  And yet I receive no emails from FB.  Nothing at all while posts are accumulating in my group.  

 

I suspect this has something to do with my own personal FB settings which also has a "Notifications" tab.  Right now it says I will receive emails...  "Only notifications about your account, security and privacy."  There are a bunch of other options available to me, but none of them seem applicable.  The options include "Recent photos from your friends."  No.  "Requests for your mobile phone number."  No thanks.   "Comments after you on timeline stories."  I don't even know what this means.  

 

Or maybe that's a red herring?  

 

Can someone get me set up to receive these lovely email notifications from my FB group?  

 

4.  Does anyone else remember phone trees?  

Edited January 13, 2018 by daijobu

[Sk8ermaiden]

I'm looking at it, but I think it's only going to work if you ONLY use facebook for groups that communicate through it. Otherwise it'll blow up your email. 

I think it's going to be easiest to do on a computer. If I access FB though a computer, and go to settings, and the notifications, then click email. I have a SLEW of options. To get emails about groups I think I would have to turn on "All Notifications" under "What I'll receive" and then also in that same tab, turn on notifications for "groups I have joined" and "updates to an events you have joined." 

 

From my phone, under "Notifications Settings" I would go to "email," and then turn on "groups."  

[gardenmom5]

I'm thinking of my time in leadership at a community theater with a diverse group of families, many of whom had strong religious beliefs. One of the big points of contention involved performance and practice dates. Some families considered Saturday to be sacred. Others were convinced that Sunday should be "family time." There were a few who did no work on Friday nights. Absolutely impossible to accommodate the diversity of beliefs and opinions. A portion of the group actually started up a movement to boycott the theater when we scheduled a Sunday activity. Then there were opinions on fundraising; again the sacrosanct day thing came into play, but also people had deeply held beliefs on the use of various substances that could or could not be made available at fundraisers. Coffee and alcohol were frequently up for debate.

 

I have a friend whose husband has some particularly paranoid opinions about the staffing of a particular airline. It's limited the travel their kids can do with their teams out of state (we live in a geographically distant state, and driving is not generally a practical option.)

 

Anyone who has spent any amount of time as a volunteer organizer knows that it is impossible to please everyone, no matter how good one's intentions.

 

 

 

That is fascinating.  I am trying to figure out what would be so different, staffing-wise, about one airline over another?  Pilot training or some other vaguely safety-related thing?  Or something about the flight attendants?  Do tell!

 

 

I'm curious too.  my brother has delved into the world of conspiracy theories.   He's an engineer, I thought he was more rational.  but he's done a lot to alienate family members (even his own kids), so it leaves him alone in his head - and conspiracy sites.

[wintermom]

 

4.  Does anyone else remember phone trees?  

 

Yes! I remember my parents sitting at the kitchen table with the phone calling up people to volunteer for swim meets. It was a PITA for them, but they did it in order to provide the swim meet experience for their kids.  They also volunteered at smoke-filled Bingo halls to help fund swimming.  

 

People who complain about having to join a fb page so that they can find out when a meeting starts need a lot more volunteer duties to give them a reality check about what it takes to run a program for their kids. They simply have no clue.

[katilac]

 

More work, not less, for volunteers.  More frustration, not less, for participants.

 

 

I think you are idealizing it somewhat, probably because you were the kid in the scenario, and not the parent dealing with phone trees (shudder!) and the other annoying and/or demanding parents that have always existed. 

 

I'm not sure that people who study communications would agree that methods of communications don't have values.   Marshal McLuhan said that cultures are shaped by their form of communication more than the content of it - that seems pretty value laden to me.

 

"Value laden" is a misinterpretation of "the medium is the message" idea, imo. Or at least a simplification. Plus, he also said "Clear prose indicates the absence of thought" so I take all of his pronouncements with a shaker full of salt. 

 

How does Group Me handle people with non-smart phones?

 

It doesn't. 

[matrips]

Agreeing with the bolded. I'm not really looking to burden anyone or expect special treatment (anymore anyway). But I still would argue that relying SOLELY on Facebook is not good communication, volunteer or not.

The bolded was saying that the two forms of communication were an electronic one and the face to face weekly or monthly meetings.

Your 4H leader is doing that.

 

Just ask your friend to text you the info then.

 

And the ‘Good to know’ - I take that as ‘okay, I won’t worry that you’ve left our 4h group when I don’t see you on our FB group anymore or contributing to the posts. Thanks for letting me know.’

[GoodGrief]

I'm curious too.  my brother has delved into the world of conspiracy theories.   He's an engineer, I thought he was more rational.  but he's done a lot to alienate family members (even his own kids), so it leaves him alone in his head - and conspiracy sites.

 

I'll message you. I hate to be vague, but truly his theory has no basis in reality and would definitely derail the conversation here.

[cera2]

Set up a dummy facebook account for communication with 4H.  It is reasonable for a group to choose one method of communication.

[Bluegoat]

I think you are idealizing it somewhat, probably because you were the kid in the scenario, and not the parent dealing with phone trees (shudder!) and the other annoying and/or demanding parents that have always existed. 

 

 

"Value laden" is a misinterpretation of "the medium is the message" idea, imo. Or at least a simplification. Plus, he also said "Clear prose indicates the absence of thought" so I take all of his pronouncements with a shaker full of salt. 

 

 

It doesn't. 

 

I'm not sure that it's really an interpretation at all.  I think a culture is full of all kinds of values, explicitly and implicitly.  Anything that does a lot to shape a culture is going to also shape it's values.

[Pen]

A method of communication does not have values. It is a tool that can be used to support whatever values you choose. Technology itself is neutral.

 

For example, I run a website and companion facebook page for hiking in our area. Numerous people in the community have told me how much this resource helps them get out in nature more. 

 

 

Values was may have been the wrong word to apply to the method of communication itself.  But the people who run a company that produces a communication technology may have values that may be incorporated into the technology.  And the technology itself may have an effect (or indeed, multiple effects) that may not fit with the values I would prefer to choose, perhaps in some cases, not even with the values that the people running the company would knowingly choose.

 

 

In some cases we do not merely own and control the things we use.  They also can change us.  And we do not always even anticipate how.

Edited January 13, 2018 by Pen

[Jean in Newcastle]

Values was the wrong word to apply to the method of communication itself.  But the people who run a company that produces a communication technology may have values that may be incorporated into the technology.  And the technology itself may have an effect that may not fit with the values I would prefer to choose, perhaps in some cases, not even the with the values that the people running the company would knowingly choose.

 

 

In some cases we do not merely own and control the things we use.  They also can change us.  And we do not always even anticipate how.

 

I can see that if you are reading news or articles curated by a specific site or platform.  I don't see that if you are using it simply to access a group calendar and news which presumably isn't different than what would be disseminated by email or even snail mail if they chose to do it that way.  The former is not what people are talking about in this thread.  The latter is. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

In fact, if you are just using FB to access a group for it's calendar, you can tell  yourself that you are "sticking it to them" because you aren't succumbing to their evil plan to corrupt your thinking. 

[rjand6more]

I can see that if you are reading news or articles curated by a specific site or platform.  I don't see that if you are using it simply to access a group calendar and news which presumably isn't different than what would be disseminated by email or even snail mail if they chose to do it that way.  The former is not what people are talking about in this thread.  The latter is. 

 

The bolded: This is a reason I continue to dislike this company.  They have done psychological experimentation on users to rate their level of sadness and count their use of negative and emotional words over the next weeks.   I'm sure most people know about this, so it's not news or anything.  I also realize it is not illegal(as long as they get permission-who reads all the user agreements? not me?) AND I also realize that they are not alone in such research.(Google, Yahoo, etc-)It's just intrusive to me.  And the fact that I have anxiety already and am prone to depression, it is cruel, imo.

 

This is just 1 reason I choose to be a "hold out."

[Jean in Newcastle]

The bolded: This is a reason I continue to dislike this company. They have done psychological experimentation on users to rate their level of sadness and count their use of negative and emotional words over the next weeks. I'm sure most people know about this, so it's not news or anything. I also realize it is not illegal(as long as they get permission-who reads all the user agreements? not me?) AND I also realize that they are not alone in such research.(Google, Yahoo, etc-)It's just intrusive to me. And the fact that I have anxiety already and am prone to depression, it is cruel, imo.

 

This is just 1 reason I choose to be a "hold out."

I did not use FB as social media so in a sense I am also a hold out. But I have needed to go to the pages of some organizations and businesses if I wanted to do business with them. I can do that without the other “baggage “.

[Guest]

I am having trouble quoting for some reason, but for those of you who asked about GroupMe without a smartphone -- they do have an option that allows those with dumbphones to use it.  I've never been in that situation, though, so I'm not familiar with how it works.  The person handling the group would have to figure it out.

 

eta:  here's a linky

Edited January 14, 2018 by amsunshine