Cypress Gardens Residents Group Communications

A quick glance at the contact list published on 1 January 2022 shows out of the 120 dwellings listed 64 residents give a mobile phone number for their contact. This means over half of us can use the Short Message Service (SMS) to send and receive texts. These messages are widely used for a host of useful communication purposes. Being one-way only, texts are less intrusive than a phone call, and recipients can read them and reply at their leisure. Sending the same text to a group though can be difficult.

A good many of us also use the more ponderous email from both mobile and laptop, but at least email has the benefit of supporting group communication. You need to learn and gain experience with email apps which is a downside but usually you are able to add a folder structure for old messages that allows you to find them again provided your structure is adequate.

While texts are relatively private, being tied to your mobile number, we know that spurious emails are a big problem. We need a simple text messaging system that supports easy group communication and is private. Apple users will claim iMessages provides such a system but it is sadly closed within the Apple world with texts having to be used for non-Apple users. Other software and hardware companies have their own closed systems which is still not ideal.

Over the last few years, with several groups both formal and informal, I have initiated or joined online groups using the WhatsApp platform to great benefit all round. Messages sent to a WhatsApp group are shared by everyone in the group - just what we need.

Globally WhatsApp boasts membership of about 2 billion people. While WhatsApp is owned by Facebook (now Meta) I have noticed no undue influence from that quarter, and instead found WhatsApp to be a private (fully encrypted) and safe app for group communications that runs across all computing devices no matter their make or model. It is based on mobile phones but WhatsApp has the ability to run on laptops which use the phone to send and receive messages. [This is WhatsApp Web which will be covered in another article.]

The uses of WhatsApp are so wide-ranging and varied that I hesitate to give examples but in my experience I have seen WhatsApp used for sharing:

• Meetings: reminders, changes of dates, times, venues, cancellations, new meetings, especially last minute changes

• Photos, images, audio messages, videos, and documents of all kinds recording happenings for events, groups, individuals

• Information: names, contacts, internet links, news, jokes, poems, and so on

Some of the existing activity groups may not wish to share with all residents. Once a person has an account on WhatsApp it is possible to create further groups. So coordinators of activities such as bowls, pub lunches, snooker, 500, aqua aerobics, tai chi, bingo, putting, painting to name just a few can use WhatsApp for their regular members.