I'd recommend you look at using Google Groups or Yahoo Groups (both free). In either, you establish a group and customize some parameters. (Can anyone on the Net see it? Is it private? Can anyone join? Invitation only? Who can post?)
Once the group is set up, you invite people to join. They subscribe themselves, setting up an ID and password. When anyone sends a message to the Group (one address), the service redistributes that message to all members via e-mail. Additionally, past messages (and more, if you like) are saved on webspace allocated to the group - so you can go back and look at them or access information from anywhere.
You can set it up where anyone can post to the group or where it's limited. It's much lower maintenance than keeping up with a contact list. People subscribe themselves. So if Mom and Dad each want on the list at both home and work, they can subscribe with 4 different addresses. These groups can have a handful of members or hundreds.
The last group I set up was for a swim team of about 220 swimmers and 150 familes last Spring. At the time, I found the features of Google Groups to be a bit richer, so I went that route.
To access that, go to
Google
then if "Groups" isn't on the main list of links, click "More". You'll see it on the next page. (I prefer to show people how to
navigate there easily so you can always find it.)
