SCENARIO: one of our local rifle/pistol clubs is continuing the use of Google products; our online calendar, and NOW the dude I think is just a closet commie, wants to move the frickin board meetings to a Google electronic meeting app.. We HAVE members saying "no frickin way we are NOT using CCP-based crap that's anti-2A...", Board is deaf, as 1 guy is directing/working this. What are there out there for free alternatives, online? Even our Auto-Sub dues payment system is run through a 'Frisco based CCP BS Link/Stripe anti-2A company?! 2nd level; have you ever seen a rifle/pistol Club go woke, and offer up all your club data to the CCP? Drive on Brothers and Sister, God bless you and yours!
Since the original question was really about meetings, I’ll start there. Everything else is unsolicited, but figured it might be useful if this keeps drifting into “who’s watching who” territory.
For meetings,
Jitsi is the cleanest answer I’ve found. Browser-based, free, no account required. You click the link, have the meeting, and get back to real life. No Google account, no ecosystem creep, no feeling like Big Brother is sitting in the corner quietly taking notes. It just works and stays out of the way.
Now, tin-foil hat back on — but just loosely fitted.
If part of the concern is staying a little more out of the spotlight, there are ways to do that without turning the club into an IT science project.
For calendars and shared files, something like
Nextcloud is basically Google Drive and Calendar, except the club owns it. That usually means paying for a server or hosting, but that’s the trade. If you don’t want Big Brother watching traffic patterns and metadata, you don’t use his parking lot.
On the board side, if the issue is decisions happening quietly in side emails or text chains (and then everyone arguing later about what was actually decided), tools like
Loomio or Helios Voting are made for clubs and member orgs. They let you run votes and document decisions in one place without dragging the whole thing into Google’s orbit or leaving a messy trail all over personal inboxes.
For communications,
Proton Mail works well for official club addresses, and
Signal is solid for quick coordination. If people who actively try to stay off radar trust it, it’s probably fine for match reminders and work days.
Payments are where reality has to win. There’s no totally invisible, regulation-free processor hiding in a bunker somewhere. Best you can do is minimize what data gets stored and give members options like ACH or checks if they’d rather not leave a long digital trail.
Bottom line: for meetings specifically, Jitsi solves the problem today. Everything else is optional, but there are ways to run a club without constantly shining a spotlight on every click, calendar entry, and conversation. Staying boring and uninteresting to Big Brother is usually the real win.
Tin foil optional. Staying off the radar encouraged
