[rich! @ etiviti]

If you want to divert your members from using the whats-new within the group – create a child theme for the file activity/post-form.php and then wrap the entire html code in this if statement: (this still allows the group admin/mod to post status updates within a group)

if ( !bp_is_group() || ( bp_is_group() && ( is_site_admin() || groups_is_user_admin( $bp->loggedin_user->id, $bp->groups->current_group->id ) || groups_is_user_mod( $bp->loggedin_user->id, $bp->groups->current_group->id ) ) ) ) {

}