John,
But the ones in the middle which I can change from "post" down to "help" do not even though they seem to show as blue in this response from my cut and paste.
The custom footer one can set (like you have) doesn't really support what you are trying to do with email addresses.? It's more of a text-only box, no support for HTML or RichText like many of the other boxes like setting the group's description page, which has the formatting options on a ribbon at the top of the box.? The custom footer does have a very-very limited "live-link" functionality and that's only if you include a full URL with http(s)://... which it will recognize as a URL and make it active for you.? But it doesn't recognize the mailto: prefix for an email address so it doesn't make that an active link.
IMO, you should post this at the beta forum () as it can be considered missing functionality, after all it recognizes the HTTP: but not the MAILTO:, so it should be an easy fix/enhancement.
Cheers,
Christos
Christos Psarras