We want all of our groups to be easy to contact and provide guidance and support to enable you to do so.
See Group Handbook B1: Availability, contact and communication
- What does this mean for our group?
- Contact methods and your role
- Keeping your personal information safe
- Contact methods
- Need support?
What does this mean for our group?
Being easy to contact means that your group has:
- Agreed contact details with named volunteers responsible for the task of monitoring each contact method
- Have a named contact and contact details for each service and activity your group provides
There are several contact methods available to your group – post, phone, email, the MS Society website, and social media.
Contact methods and your role
Your Coordinating Team may choose to recruit one or more volunteers to monitor each contact method.
Keeping your personal information safe
We strongly recommend that you do not share your personal information, including home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, anywhere in print, online or in email communications.
This ensures your safety and security, both during and after your time volunteering with us. It also makes it easy to transfer responsibility for a contact method if someone is away, or steps down.
Keeping your data safe online
We strongly recommend that you do not share your personal information, including home addresses and phone numbers, anywhere online. This includes on your MS Society website Near me pages, your social media accounts and PDF versions of your newsletters.
Your online security is your responsibility.
- Find out more about our Data protection basics
Contact methods
Post
Your group needs a local address listing that individuals and organisations can use to correspond with you. We recommend that you set up a PO Box address for this purpose. Your PO Box can be set up to forward post to a home address, or you can agree on a named volunteer in an appropriate role to collect it.
- Set up a PO box to receive your group’s post
Phone
People expect to be able to contact your group by phone. We recommend that you purchase a dedicated landline or mobile phone for making and receiving calls on our behalf.
- Find out more about Being easy to contact by phone
Being easy to contact by email has become an important way to support people affected by MS. It enables people who use screen reader software to access information in a way that suits them.
If your group handles money and delivers services and activities, you have access to MS Society email – your unique @mssociety.org.uk email address.
Using MS Society email means your email communication looks professional and meets our brand guidelines. It also ensures that information contained within emails is stored securely, as required by the Data Protection Act.
If your group offers MS Support, you have access to a separate [email protected] account. Emails to this address must be dealt with by a volunteer trained to provide emotional support.
- For technical support and our email data protection rules, see Being easy to contact by email
- Find out more about using MS Society email
MS Society website
If your group handles money and delivers services and activities, you have your own web pages under Near me on the MS Society website. Keeping these web pages regularly updated should be your first priority for online promotion.
- Learn about maintaining your MS Society group web pages
Social media
Social media enables people to interact with each other by both sharing and consuming information over the internet.
Our groups use social media to share news stories, events and information about MS.
- Read our guidance on Using social media
Need support?
Our Supporter Care Team is here to help you with queries about being easy to contact.
- Get contact details for the Supporter Care Team
