Yes, chdir() does have its place.
"advice for the best way to catch the output of the print commands fo storage to become part of the body of the email?
You could use sprintf() which makes a string?
I am not sure whether these user names like "Maur" are actual users on your unix machine? If so, I would use simple SendMail to that user ID and leave it to the users to have a .forward file in their account that forwards to gmail. Don't create a mapping file of some userIDname to gmail address unless for some reason you have to. This adds an extra layer of admin hassle for you.