WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Talks have started between Vital Communities and a group of Upper Valley residents about preserving the town-specific listservs before the nonprofit pulls the plug.
“Vital Communities has been approached by a group of current and past listserv managers and community members interested in continuing the town-based listserv service as an independently organized entity,” Ellen Hender, executive director of the White River Junction-based organization wrote in a Monday announcement posted to multiple listservs. “We are open to this idea and will continue to host the town-based listservs to allow time for the group to organize.”
The organization’s announcement came after it announced last week that it would no longer support the 38 town-specific listservs — where people share town news, business deals and information about lost pets, among other topics — that it has overseen since 2014. Originally, the listservs where scheduled to end last Friday, but after community feedback Vital Communities delayed their demise.
“I am surprised that Vital Communities did not recognize the value to the community and decided to shut them down in such an abrupt manner,” said Stan Williams, a Norwich resident who’s history with the listservs extends back to their founding by ValleyNet around 2004. “To me it should be an easy decision to move it to a newly formed nonprofit and cooperate.”
Williams is a member of a group is in the process of establishing a Vermont-based nonprofit organization called UV Lists to take the town-specific listservs. Group members are in the process of working on a memorandum of understanding with Vital Communities, which will detail the roles of each organization throughout the transition process, he said.
“It is important to us that any process of sharing listserv subscriber data be handled responsibly and legally. We are seeking legal counsel to determine what this would need to entail,” Hender wrote in Monday’s announcement. “We hope to have more details to share on the timeline soon.”
Williams said the group hopes to have the transition completed this fall. Thousands of listserv subscribers would “receive exactly the same emails” as they do now, he said, except with a new domain name that matches the new nonprofit organizations.
He estimated it would cost around $10,000 a year to pay for the technology to operate the listservs. The group is working on calculating other expenses, including how much money they need to establish the new nonprofit organization. Group members will post more information to the listservs, which will include information about how to get involved with the new nonprofit and how to donate money.
