Communications

You can use the Communication section to contact your members, rather than holding a separate mailing list. When you click on it, you’ll see two tabs: Communication and Groups.


Under Communication, you can email your members, and see the emails you have already sent out. We recommend using this system in the first instance as it is extremely secure in terms of data protection as you won’t be holding a mailing list anywhere else. The emails are also plain-text, which makes them more accessible. To compose a new email, click the purple New Communication button on the right.


Emails you send through SUMS won’t appear on your Sent emails through your student group York SU Gmail account, but you will receive replies to them directly to your York SU Gmail account and be able to respond there.

Sending Emails

Groups

Here you can create a specific group of members to email. If you’d like to send an email to your whole committee, or a particular cast or team, for example, you can create them as a Group. Click New Group, give it a name and then type in the names of the members you’d like to add. It might be useful to open the Members section in a new tab! This group will then be added to your Communication Groups.

Interested Members

As part of Freshers’ Fair, there is an option for students to register interest in your activity. They do this by clicking the "Register Interest" button on your virtual fair webpage. The student will be able to see a list of all the activities they’ve registered interest in on the wishlist page as part of the fair.


On the student dashboard once they’ve added it to their wishlist their name will be displayed under Members->Interested Members, for 3 weeks. It is then possible to send out communications to those members to let them know what’s going on or if there are any taster sessions.


We are currently working on extending this feature beyond Freshers' Fair, so stay tuned for updates!

Alternative Options

If you wish to send an email that is not just plain text, or you wish to hold a mailing list of individuals who are not members (for example alumni of your group or those thinking about joining), we recommend using Google Groups or MailJet.

We do not recommend using Gmail for bulk emails, because of the risk of accidentally revealing the names and email addresses to all the recipients. If you use Gmail, you must ensure that all the recipients are in BCC. Contact your link staff member immediately if you send a bulk email without BCC-ing, as this may need to be treated as a data breach.

Questions?

Contact your link staff member or our IT Team (it@yorksu.org)