Managing Emails and Text Messages from Activity Messenger

Activity Messenger is used by sports, recreation, education, and community organizations to send important emails and text messages to their participants, members, students, and parents.

If you’ve registered for a class, joined a program, purchased a membership, or filled out a form, you may receive messages through Activity Messenger on behalf of that organization.

This page helps you understand:

Why you’re receiving these messages
What types of messages you may receive
How to manage your email and text message preferences
What to do if you’re not receiving messages—or receiving too many

Our goal is to make sure you stay informed, while giving you clear and simple ways to manage how organizations communicate with you.

Covered in this guide

Use this section to quickly find the message or notification topic you need.

How Activity Messenger sends messages
Not receiving emails?
Managing your notification preferences
Legal compliance and consent
Best practices for managing your messages

1. How Activity Messenger sends messages

Activity Messenger is used by sports, recreation, leisure, and similar organizations to communicate with their members, participants, students, and parents.

Organizations use Activity Messenger to send two distinct types of messages. Understanding the difference helps you know what you can unsubscribe from and what messages are required for service delivery.

Operational messages (required)

Operational messages are essential communications related to services you registered for or purchased.

These messages are sent because they are related to a service, registration, payment, account, or activity connected to that Organization.

Examples of operational messages include:

Class or event reminders
Cancellations or schedule changes
Invoices, receipts, and payment confirmations
Important service or safety-related notices

Important notes:

You cannot unsubscribe from operational messages on your own.
If you wish to stop receiving these messages, you must contact the Organization directly to make a formal request.
If you later register again or make a new purchase with the same organization, you will automatically be opted back in to receiving operational messages. This ensures you receive essential information related to your activity or service.

Marketing messages (optional)

Marketing messages are used by organizations to share optional information and promotional content.

These messages are not required for service delivery, and you may unsubscribe from them at any time.

Examples of marketing messages include:

Program announcements
Upcoming events or registrations
Newsletters
Promotions or special offers

If you unsubscribe from marketing messages:

You will continue to receive operational messages
You will still remain a client or participant of the organization

Organizations are required to obtain your consent before sending marketing messages. In many jurisdictions, this consent is required by law.

Organization-specific preferences

All messages are sent on behalf of a specific organization.

Your notification preferences are managed separately for each organization.
For example, you may receive marketing messages from one organization while opting out of marketing messages from another.

2. Not receiving emails?

If you’re missing emails from an organization, don’t worry. A few simple steps usually fix it.

💡 Why this happens

Email providers use automated filters to protect users from spam and phishing. These filters don’t just look at the sender — they also watch how you interact with messages.

That’s why the steps below work in layers:

Removing an email from junk tells your provider the message is safe
Adding the sender to your contacts often goes a step further and is sometimes enough on its own
Adding the domain to your Safe Senders list is the strongest signal and should be used if messages continue to be blocked

Different email providers behave differently, which is why one step may work for some people while another is required for others.

Once your provider recognizes the sender as trusted, future messages from that organization are much more likely to land directly in your inbox.

Step 1: Check your spam or junk folder

Start by checking your spam or junk folder.

If you find the message there:

Mark it as “Not Spam”
Move it to your inbox

This helps your email provider recognize future messages as safe.

Step 2: Add the Organization’s email address to your contacts

Adding the sender to your contacts tells your email provider that this email address is trusted.

To do this:

Open one of the emails you’ve received from the organization (if available)
Add the sender’s email address to your contacts or address book

This simple step significantly improves future deliverability and helps prevent messages from being filtered or blocked.

Step 3: Add the domain to your safe senders list

If messages are still not appearing, your email provider may be blocking them automatically—especially if the sender is new.

Add one or both of the following to your safe senders or allowed list:

activitymessenger.com
The organization’s own email domain (if the email appears to come from their domain)

Below are instructions for common email providers:

Hotmail / Outlook

Click the Settings (gear) icon
Go to Junk Email
Add activitymessenger.com or the organization’s domain to Safe Senders

Bell / Sympatico

Open Settings
Go to Security → Blocked Senders and Domains
Add the domain to Allowed Senders

Yahoo Mail

Create a new contact using:
- info@activitymessenger.com
- Or the sender’s email address

Other Providers

Search online for:
“[Provider name] safe senders list”

Step 4: Contact the Organization (if needed)

If emails still do not arrive:

Confirm that the organization has your correct email address
Ask them to resend the message

Incorrect contact information is a common cause of delivery issues.

3. Managing Your Notification Preferences

Activity Messenger lets you control how each organization communicates with you.

Your notification preferences are managed per organization, not globally.

For example:

You may receive SMS messages from your skating club
But receive email only from your gymnastics club

Each organization manages its own communications, and your choices apply only to that organization unless stated otherwise.

Managing Notifications from an Email

Every email sent through Activity Messenger includes an Unsubscribe link in the footer.

When you click this link:

You’ll be asked to confirm your choice
Once confirmed, you will stop receiving marketing-related emails from that organization

You will still receive operational emails related to services you registered for, such as reminders, cancellations, invoices, or safety-related notices.

⚠️ Important
If you want to stop receiving all messages from an organization—including operational messages—you must contact that organization directly and make a formal request.

Managing notifications from Text Messages (SMS)

Sender phone numbers

Organizations using Activity Messenger send SMS from a dedicated 10-digit phone number.

Different organizations may send from different phone numbers, often selected based on the closest available area code in Activity Messenger’s number pool. This is why two organizations you interact with might message you from different numbers.

In most cases, the same organization will consistently send from the same number.

Unsubscribing by text

You can manage SMS delivery directly from your phone.

To stop receiving SMS messages, reply with:

STOP

To re-enable SMS messages later, reply with:

START

⚠️ Important note about SMS unsubscribing

Replying STOP may block SMS messages sent from the same Activity Messenger sending number. If multiple organizations use that same number, this may affect SMS messages from more than one organization.

This may block both marketing and operational SMS messages, including class reminders, cancellations, emergency updates, and last-minute changes.

You can re-enable SMS messaging at any time by replying START.

⚠️ Important: If you reply STOP, keep the SMS conversation thread if possible. You may need it later to reply START and re-enable SMS messages from that sending number.

4. Legal compliance and consent

Activity Messenger provides tools that help organizations manage common electronic messaging requirements in Canada and the United States, including consent, sender identification, and unsubscribe options.

If you receive a message through Activity Messenger, it usually means the organization has a relationship with you, such as a registration, purchase, membership, form submission, or prior consent record.

Don’t recognize a message?

If you receive a message sent through Activity Messenger and:

You do not recognize the Organization, or
You have already contacted the Organization and continue to receive messages,

please contact us directly at support@activitymessenger.com.

Our support team will review the situation and help ensure your preferences and consent are properly respected.

5. Best Practices for managing your messages

To ensure you never miss important updates:

Keep your email address and phone number up to date
Add Activity Messenger to your safe senders list
Review your notification preferences regularly
Avoid unsubscribing from SMS if you rely on urgent reminders