UI Metaphors for complex criteria selection

Mailing List management is a good example of a case where my conundrum arises.
Say there is a m-m relationship between parties and groups - anyone can be a
member of any combintation of groups. Now, let's say the user wants to be
able to send mailings to people who have various combinations of membership
and non-membership in those groups.

Here's a medium-complex example: (Knitting Group or Macrame Group) and Active
Contact and Mailing List Option

The first issue is that users really do have criteria this complex or much
more so, and the criteria are simple and make complete sense to them in their
own minds, but they haven't been trained to think or express themselves in
terms of boolean logic expressions, nested parentheses, etc. They'll want a
way to express their intentions in the program in a way that seems like
defining a mailing list, not like writing code.

The second problem is that, ideally, whatever solution we come up with to the
problem, we hope it'll really simple to write and maintain, not some
monstrosity that takes more effort that can justify the return.

Has anyone come up with models or metaphors that deal well with cases like
these.
.

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