IRC woes

I am a leatherworker, and I belong to an internet Leather Guild with almost 350 members. We exchange emails on Yahoogroups, but we hold our business meetings once a month on IRC. Lately, attendance has been spotty, and people are complaining that it is just too technical and hard to use mIRC or JPilot. Does anyone know if any of the IM programs would support 100+ people in a chatroom (ICQ, preferably) or is there another alternative we could use? I suspect we use IRC because when the Guild was founded, that was the only way to make chat available. We have tried online tutorials, links to help pages, explained IRC until we're blue in the face, but many of the people who would like to come to meetings are intimidated by their computers, and seem to get stuck. ( Also, there are two members on Macs who can't seem to get going, and none of us techie types know enough about Macs to help.) So, I am looking for either an alternative to IRC, or a foolproof way to help people get set up painlessly on IRC. Any suggestions welcome.
TIA
Johanna
PS If you are interested in leatherwork, check us out:
http://www.iilg.org/

 

There's usually a web interface for just about everything, including IRC.
Depending on which server you use (undernet, dalnet, et al) check the member support pages.
If you're on undernet, just go to http://www.undernet.org/webchat.php
In the channel box, enter the channel name of your channel, for example, #leatherworker and hit the connect button.
You will have to click YES to the TOS for the script (written by an undernet OP, and it is safe)
It is java based, so as long as everyone has a reasonably new browers (IE5.5 or newer will work splendidly, not sure about Mac).
The next screen will prompt you for a nickname. Type in anything you want here. Hit connect.
Note: people using a router, or other IP masking scheme, may have difficulties connecting.

There's a similar interface for dalnet, efnet, and a couple of others (Google it).
If you just want to use a different client, try Trillian. http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/downloads/

 

Reboot

Good to see you posting, and thanks for all the information. I will check it out! I appreciate your advice.
Johanna

Did you get your getting onto the BBS site problem resolved? Curious to know how- it's been frustrating a couple of people.

 

I post from work, where there's such huge holes in the system, everything gets through. Still can't post from home, unless I DMZ the system.
Narrowed it down to the popups causing the problem. Something in the script won't allow the BBS page to load if the popup is blocked BEFORE pageload, because of some port the popup want's to access.

More on IRC. For those having trouble connecting, because of router or other firewall issues, there's an excellent article, written for dalnet, but applies to all the other nets, providing they use the same ports for identd etc.
It's at: http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/security/fwfaq.html
Towards the bottom of the page, are instructions for most routers.