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Frankford Text Blast Update

We have been offering this service for a few years now and many people find it useful.  Some find it invaluable.  So what is it?  We send text messages about important events in Frankford directly to your cell phone.  Reminders about important meetings and events are the most common thing we use it for.   If you sign up for the service, you will get a reminder about the meeting the day of the meeting.  In some cases like last week when the movie night in Overington park was cancelled due to weather, we sent a notice out right away.  Also last week when the police cancelled the PSA meeting we sent out a notice on that.

We also get questions about events and we answer all inquiries.

It will only work on your cell phone. If you have to pay for each text message you get, you might want to think about that before signing up.  On the other hand if your text messages are free, then it costs you nothing.

To sign up you only have to text the word JOIN to “sms+359@telefio.com”.   (It doesn’t look like a phone number but it works).  It is anonymous and once you sign up you can always send a message to remove your number.

This is just one more way to communicate.

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TextBlast Upgraded

We had to find a new system for our TextBlast system at the end of October.  The old system stopped working.

We moved all of our users to telefio.com.  It is an improvement in several ways.  It lets us schedule a notice in advance which we could not do with the old system.  It also lets us send something out from a mobile phone.  So if I get a last minute notice and need to send it out while we’re out of the office, it can go.

The one problem we have is that the new system needs to know your cell phone provider.  If you subscribe from your cell phone, it automatically gets that information.  For the users previously subscribed, we did the best job we could in identifying what carrier you are using.

If you signed up for TextBlast in the past and have not received a message this week, Please email your cell phone number and carrier (Verizon, AT&T, Cricket etc.) to gil@frankfordgazette.com.  We will update the records manually and send you a test message.

If you have not signed up for TextBlast and would like to, just text the word JOIN to sms+659@telefio.com.   That will put you back into our system.

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Textblast is Down

Textblast, our messaging system has hit a glitch and has been down since last night.  We were not able to send out reminders for Saturday events which are the Art under the Trees and Frankford Friends new building opening.

We’ll let you know when the service is restored.