9.3 u3a Officers

The u3a Offices and Post Holders page provides a useful way for Beacon users to be able to send emails to some or all of your u3a's post holders.

Sending an email to Post Holders

Click u3a Officers on the Home Page to open a list of the Offices and Post Holders in your u3a.

Choose the people that you wish to send an email to using the tick boxes in the Select column. Alternatively, click on the Select column header to toggle all the checkboxes on or off.

Press Send E-mail to open up a form to compose the email:

Clicking the blue links on the right side of the browser will insert a Token that can be used to personalise your email. For example, #FORENAME customises every email with the member’s Forename. There is the list of the available Tokens below.

Please refer to section 6.1.1 for more information about sending emails.

List of Tokens

#FORENAME	e.g. William
#SURNAME	e.g. Smith
#FAM	Familiar name e.g. Bill
#TELEPHONE	Telephone (usually a landline and associated with an address)
#TELEPHONE4	Telephone (last 4 digits)
#MOBILE	Mobile
#MOBILE4	Mobile (last 4 digits)
#OFFICE	u3a Post or Office
#CUSTOM1	Name given to the first custom field (if there is one).  Also versions #CUSTOM2, etc.

Note: there are more Tokens available when sending emails from other places such as the Members list or Group Members list.

Adding a new Office

Click Add new office at the top of the page and enter:

• The name of the Office
• The Post Holder, selected from the drop-down list of current members
• The associated Office email which may be the same as that stored on the Member Record or it may be specific to the post, e.g. treasurer@…...

There is a tick box to enable the sending of a notification to this officer when a new member joins online; typically this would be ticked for the Membership Secretary.

After filling out the form, press Save Record

Changing an Office

• To change an Office, click edit to the right of the office name. Make the changes in the Post Holder Record form and press Save Record.
  
• To delete an Office, click delete to the right of the office name. You will be required to confirm deletion.

Choosing the email address to send from

When a person sends an email in Beacon it automatically puts in the Member's personal email address for any responses. 

If you set a person in the u3a Officers with an email attached to a name, when that person logs into Beacon and sends an email they can then choose from a dropdown the address for any replies. It can be their personal one or any set against their name on u3a Officers.

For example, when Neil Armstrong signs in, you can see above that he has 2 entries as demo and Business Secretary. 

When he opens the Send Email form, he will be able to select either of these office emails or his own personal email to determine the "from" address and the destination for any responses. 

Revision History

v1	2020-04-04	Graeme Bunting	First version.
v2	2023-08-14	Graeme Bunting	Clickable Tokens now available when sending emails
v3	2024-11-17	John Alexander	Use of multiple email address when sending an email
v4	2024-12-15	Graeme Bunting	Adding or editing an office now in a separate form, which includes a tick box to enable sending an email to the officer when a new member joins online. Minor changes to text.