Friends General Conference

Together we nurture the spiritual vitality of Friends

Google Tools

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Google isn’t just a search engine, they have have some great free tools meetings can use.  Here are some favorites:

 

Gmail

 

Most people know that Google offers free email, but many meetings have not considered creating emails for roles in the meeting.  For example, if there is an email for clerkofmymeeting@gmail.com the email can easily be shared when clerks change.  This also eliminates the problem of sharing and using personal email, which some people would prefer not to do on a public web page.

 

Google Voice

 

There are a lot of meetings that don’t have a phone and list a personal number as the number for the meetinghouse.  An alternative to this is creating a Google Voice number.  This is a free service that lets you select a number that will ring to a phone or phones (or even a computer) of your choice. The benefits here are again not having to put out your personal information on a public website, and easily turning over the task of answering the phone by logging into the account and specifying a new phone to receive the Google Voice calls.

 

Google Calendar

 

The Quaker Cloud has a great way to list events, but some meetings prefer to use a calendar with a more traditional look.  Google Calendar lets you set up a calendar, or even multiple calendars, with events that are public or private.  The calendar can be linked or embedded on your site.  

 

Note:  It is not advised that you embed a calendar with private events.  If you would like to use a calendar featuring private events, it is recommended you link to it instead of embedding it.  Embedding a calendar with private content will cause it to render strangely on most browsers.

 

Google Forms

Google Forms let you build forms and send the results to a spreadsheet. You can use this to collect information for events, activities, or even get information on members and attenders.  Like the Google Calendar, the Forms can be linked or embedded on your site.  

 

Google Docs

Google Docs allows you to create spreadsheets, word processor documents, and power-point-like slide shows. Google Docs lets you create dynamic, living documents that you can give perimission to other people to edit.

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