Email Lists

Email Lists

In order to help us save time in rehearsals and keep costs down, we now send out most notices by email.

If you do not have access to email, please make sure your section leader (if you’re in the orchestra) or one of the committee (if you’re in the choir) knows that so they can make sure to give you paper copies of any messages.

The members email lists will only ever be used for official announcements from the Society Committee or messages approved by them.

To subscribe to the lists, please send a blank email either to chorus-members-subscribe@cam-phil.org.uk or to orchestra-members-subscribe@cam-phil.org.uk as appropriate. You will receive a confirmation token, which you need to send back to verify that your email address is recorded correctly.

We also have a third official mailing list, which we use to tell members about other events in and around Cambridge, typically where another musical organisation has written to us and asked us to pass on details. This is the “musgo” list: most members are also members of the musgo list, and you are engouraged to join. The method is the same as for the other lists − send a blank email to musgo-subscribe@cam-phil.org.uk and send back the confirmation token.

Note that all three offical lists are “one way”, so if you want to reply to a message, please remember not to “reply-to-all” (or Majordomo will tell you off!).

 

Full details:

Joining a list 

To join a list, you first need to send a blank email to the appropriate subscription address:

List name Subscribe addressMajordomo command
chorus-membersChorus members announcementschorus-members-subscribe@cam-phil.org.uksubscribe chorus-members
orchestra-membersOrchestra members announcementsorchestra-members-subscribe@cam-phil.org.uksubscribe orchestra-members
musgoSelected news about other musical organisations and eventsmusgo-subscribe@cam-phil.org.uksubscribe musgo
socialUnofficial announcements and discussionsocial-subscribe@cam-phil.org.uksubscribe social

As an alternative to sending a blank email, you can send the instruction in the last column above in the body of an email to majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk. This is particularly useful if you want to join more than one mailing list at the same time.

When you send your initial request (using either method), Majordomo will respond with a message containing a confirmation token: you must follow the instructions in that message, to verify that your email address is working and that it really was you who sent the request. In general, any request to Majordomo requires confirmation before it can succeed, and that confirmation is as simple as hitting reply and sending the one-word message “accept”. Make sure you do not change the subject line, though, otherwise Majordomo won’t know which token you’re accepting.

You will then receive a message welcoming you to the list.

Using your password

The first time you join one of our mailing lists, you will also be sent a password. You should keep the welcome message for future reference.

With your password, you can avoid almost all confirmation tokens. To do this, you must use the “Majordomo command” method, with one small addition. Make the first line of your message to majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk:

default password PASSWORD and then type whichever other command(s) you need on separate lines after that.

If you need a reminder of your password, send the one-line message

password-show to majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk.

Leaving a list (“unsubscribe”)

To leave a list, the process is almost identical: you need to send a blank email to the appropriate unsubscription address:

List nameUnsubscribe addressMajordomo command
chorus-memberschorus-members-unsubscribe@cam-phil.org.ukunsubscribe chorus-members
orchestra-membersorchestra-members-unsubscribe@cam-phil.org.ukunsubscribe orchestra-members
musgomusgo-unsubscribe@cam-phil.org.ukunsubscribe musgo
socialsocial-unsubscribe@cam-phil.org.ukunsubscribe social

In most cases, you will then need to return a confirmation token.

If you can read email sent to the subscribed address, but cannot send email using it (eg. if your old email address still works, but only as a redirection to a new address), then you can still unsubscribe, by sending the one-line message:

unsubscribe LISTNAME 

to majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk (use the appropriate list name, of course). You can send this message from anywhere, provided you quote the email address you want to unsubscribe. You must still look out for the confirmation token (which will be sent to the old email address), and return it.

If you no longer have access to the old email address at all, then you won’t of course be receiving any email from us. In this case, please still tell us, so that we can update our records.

Changing your address

If you change your address, you can just unsubscribe and then re-subscribe with your new address. It is much better, though (especially if you have joined more than one list!) to use the single-step “changeaddr” command. To do this, using your new address, send the one-line:

messagechangeaddr

 to majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk. You must do this before your old email address is switched off, since you need to return a confirmation token from both the old and new accounts.

If you quote your password, ie. if you send the two lines:

default password PASSWORDchangeaddr

then the first confirmation isn’t needed, which means you don’t need to have access to the old account, although you will still need to confirm the new address.

Problems?

  • If you don’t get a reply almost immediately to your request, or when you send in a confirmation token, then it may be that your email program has messed up the subject line or the reply address. In particular, addresses with the word “owner” in them are always wrong (they are intended for contacting the list manager, or for detecting bounced messages), but some email programs tend to choose these incorrectly when you hit reply. See also the next point.

  • If you believe you have successfully subscribed, but you don’t then receive any messages when other people have done, or if you are not seeing any messages from Majordomo at all, then it may be due to an over-zealous “anti-spam” filter. If you or your email provider (ISP) run any kind of filter, you may have to tell it about the Cam Phil mailing list, otherwise any messages you receive may be rejected or consigned to the “junk” folder. Note that, in common with most other email lists, messages from us are sent with a variety of “one-time” sender addresses (a method known as “VERP”), so you may have particular difficulty if you have a filter which junks messages from anyone who is not in your address book – there is no one single address which you can add.

    There is unfortunately nothing we can do about this at our end, and if you cannot find a way to allow our messages through your junk filter then your only option may be to switch to a different ISP which has a different filtering policy. Please, however, let us know so that we can compile a list of “list-unfriendly” ISPs to warn other people!

    If you want to check that your subscription is OK, send the single word “show” in the body of a message to majordomo@cam-phil.org.uk. A complete summary of everything Majordomo knows about you will be sent back straight away (so if that reply doesn’t arrive, you definitely need to check for a filter getting in the way!).

  • If you are really stuck, you can contact the list manager at majordomo-owner@cam-phil.org.uk