If your choir has messaging switched on, the Messages tab carries three different things. Directors and section leaders can post; members read, and can comment on bulletins and answer polls.
There are no private messages
Choirside has no direct messages between members, in any choir. This is a deliberate design decision, not a missing feature. Announcements go to the whole choir or to a section, and they are visible to the people they’re sent to.
It matters most for choirs with young singers: there is no channel through which an adult can contact a child privately, because that channel doesn’t exist in the product.
Announcements
An announcement notifies people. Use it when something needs to reach your choir.
You choose who it goes to: everyone in the choir, a single voice-part section, or a group you’ve defined. Section leaders can address their own section; whether they can address anything wider is a setting under Features › Messaging.
A subject is optional. A meeting link is optional too, and only Zoom, Google Meet and Teams links are accepted.
The urgent flag
Marking an announcement urgent makes it skip daily summaries and quiet hours, so it arrives immediately, at whatever hour it happens to be.
That’s exactly right for “rehearsal moved to Thursday” sent on Wednesday evening. It is exactly wrong for the weekly notices, and if everything is urgent, urgent stops meaning anything and people mute you. Use it sparingly.
Bulletins
A bulletin is the notice board. Nobody is notified about a bulletin. It sits in the Messages tab for people to find.
That makes it the right home for standing information: the term’s rehearsal schedule, what to wear for the carol service, where to park. Members can comment on bulletins, so it doubles as the place for questions that would otherwise become a dozen separate emails to you.
Polls
A poll asks one question with a list of answers, and optionally closes on a date you set. You can also close it by hand at any time.
Decide how answers are recorded before you create it. This cannot be changed afterwards.
- Named: each answer is recorded against the person who gave it, so you can see who said what. Use this when you need to know who’s coming.
- Anonymous: you see the totals and who has taken part, but never how any individual answered. Use this when you’re asking for an honest opinion.
How announcements reach people
Members get announcements by email at their sign-in address. Each member controls their own delivery under Settings › Notifications, where they can group non-urgent announcements into a daily summary and set quiet hours. Urgent announcements ignore both.
Email is the only channel available today. Push notifications and text messages are listed on that screen but can’t be switched on yet, so don’t assume an urgent announcement will buzz somebody’s phone. It will land in their inbox.