Hello Members of the IAPSNJ,
In order for our membership to keep you informed, we need a valid email address. We understand that many people don’t do email, because they’re afraid of spam or getting inundated with useless crap. Understandable. Email does not have to be scary. There are a number of free services providing email. Many such as Gmail are very very good at filtering out spam. We would recommend using Gmail for a couple of other reasons. It’s easy to open up a photo album that we may post on our website of a past event, etc. or maybe a family member posted some pictures of an event you were at. If it is a Google Photos album, it is easy to view, and save pictures if you choose to.
It has great spam filtering. It has many other features, too many to list here.
Also Gmail has a very cool option that will keep track of where you use your email address especially signing up for things like a newsletter, “like ours’ or online purchasing like Amazon.
With Gmail, whenever you have to use an email to sign up for something, you add something to the end of your name like this example. Instead of just using your name at gmail.com you can use something like this.
JohnDoe+Joespizza@gmail.com. Just add a plus sign, right after your address and before the @ sign.
You will still receive emails from Joe’s Pizza, but if you start getting bogus emails addressed to that email address and it didn’t come from Joes Pizza, then you know that possibly Joe’s pizza’s email list was hacked or sold. At that point you can choose to tell them about it, or simply mark it as spam.
Gmail learns. It recognizes spam emails very well because other people have marked emails from those particular senders as spam so it will dump those emails directly into your spam folder. But if you’re expecting an email that somebody is sending you, check there first sometimes it goes there accidentally. Then just have to mark it ” not spam”.
You should always check that folder periodically.
Also email addresses do not have to be very identifiable, like your name, they could be a random name and number etc so if people are searching they will have a hard time to find you. Although, friends and family may want to communicate by email, so it’s a choice.
Many of you are already using text messages to converse with people or even businesses, but at least with email if somebody sends you important information you can hold on to it and refer back to it, or search for it. Just remember don’t subscribe to anything and you will get a lot less email.
REMEMBER, NEVER click on a link in an email, even if it looks legit. If it is supposedly from someone you know, check with them first. Business may email you something that says it needs your attention, DON’T CLICK. Contact them through a known method, such as a phone number on a statement, or go to their official website.
We know that some of you do have an email address and this info is a little redundant, if so, please provide your email address to us for better communication with “your” organization.
We never give out email addresses.