The following message just went out to all email users cpcug:

Please take this message seriously. If you rely on your CPCUG.org mailbox, you'll need to find a substitute before July is done.

CPCUG will shortly be ending member email services, other than the few official accounts used by active officers and directors. Please read this message to the end to review your options. It is repeated online here.

Most current CPCUG.org email accounts will turn off at the end of July. We will make a backup at that time, but may not be able to recover individual mailbox contents, and certainly not without substantial delay.

Therefore you should take one or two steps, depending on what you want:

1) Before July 31 you will want to offload any email stored in your online CPCUG.org mailbox. (There is a FAQ on our website on how best to do this.)

   Unless you opt for step (2) below, you should then advise your regular correspondents and those newsletters to which you subscribe of your new email address. The easiest method to change subscriptions is to subscribe with a new address, and then unsubscribe from the old one.

   Changing addresses should include the ListServ email lists sponsored by CPCUG. Those lists will continue otherwise unchanged. You manage your own subscriptions for those lists, typically by email from your new email address (see our online FAQ on how to do this too). Our email lists sent to most CPCUG.org addresses will bounce after July, and bouncing addresses will be deleted from our lists. This will _not_ happen if you set up a forwarding address, see (2) below.

2) --- Only if you wish --- tell us you want post-July email to your old address to be forwarded to your new email account. This last requires that you take at least three steps (and will NOT happen if you do not do all of them):
  • choose the email address to which you want mail forwarded,
    if necessary after establishing a new email account, and
    making sure it is working the way you want it to; then
  • register as a CPCUG.org Member on our website, using that new
    email address (not your old one); and
  • using the Contact Us form on our website, send a request
    for forwarding, telling us your
    (a) name in full, so we can confirm your membership;
    (b) your "old" CPCUG.org email address;
    (c) whether your CPCUG.org membership is paid up to date, and
    (d) your "new" email address to which post-July mail should be sent.

Note that forwarding will _not_ occur unless you send a timely
request with all the details listed. Forwarders can be established after July, but email sent to the old address before it takes effect will not be saved. It takes about three days to set up a forwarder,
_after_ the CPCUG.org email IP address is changed to our new host.

Please understand that CPCUG.org now lacks volunteers to do these steps for you. That shortcoming is the main reason we have to do this change.

This change is forced upon us because CPCUG.org lacks the volunteers to continue our membership wide, no charge email services. That email service also costs us far more than it is worth, and lacks the responsiveness that justified the original partnership.

You are welcome to comment or propose changes on our web page about this change, _after_ you register, see the online FAQ on Registration.
(That registration is entirely separate from Webmail logins.)

Please do NOT bother the CPCUG.org Office if you have issues with this development. Instead please comment as just described or use the website's Contact Us message if you wish to raise concerns or problems. There may be unavoidable delays and impersonal responses, since only one volunteer is available to do all of this responding.

There are a surprising number of no-fee email accounts now available, so the need for this CPCUG.org sponsored service is much diminished. Most member's internet service providers and many cell-phone companies offer one or more email accounts along with the internet connections they provide; virtually all such accounts include webmail (that is secure access via the internet). In addition there are many third-party services offering free email, such as gmail, hotmail and yahoo. Those who wish can even buy special features, such as encryption or anonymous access.  For more on this see our online FAQs and Tutorials.

Sorry we have no other choice,