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Choir Life: Using Our Newsletter

Special Note About Communications
from Dick Jackson

These are the mailings the GHC and WCC directors send out to currently-registered choir members (we take care of subscribing you each season):

  • GHC-Breeze: for Gettin' Higher Choir current members
  • Ripples: for Wavelengths Community Choir current members
The choir directors also send out:
  • CCLT Alumni Alerts: very infrequent updates for CCLT graduates
  • Higher Notes: items of possible interest to anyone in our community
If you are a current member of Gettin' Higher Choir or Wavelengths, please continue to receive Higher Notes, for some info that your directors want you to have, and for info between choir seasons. For others in our community, you can choose to unsubscribe from Higher Notes using the checkbox below, or to unsubscribe from all mailings from us, use the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our mailings.

PAGE MENU
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Goals    Submission Guidelines
Formatting, Word Limits, etc.   Responsibility For Submissions
Sections For Submissions  Editor's Request
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GOALS OF OUR MAILINGS

Higher Notes, published as needed

The goal of Higher Notes is to keep our community up-to-date on the activities of the various choirs and the opportunities that those activities offer to the members and possibly to their others in their contact circles.

Director's & Admin Notes plus GHC, HNC, Soundings & CCLT News & Business and other submissions from the administration of those organizations only. Mainly, items that the choir directors want the whole community to know about. If you have something that you think would fit that description, send it to: Dick Jackson

The Higher Town Crier is a section of Higher Notes to support members of our extended choir community in drawing things that they value to the attention of other members by publishing their items pertinent to:

~ singing, music or the arts generally

~ information, activities, events or opportunities that the submitter is directly involved in or actively supports.

Submissions accepted from past and present GHC, HNC, Soundings & CCLT members plus any of our concert Guest Artists

See the guidelines below, and then you can click here to: submit an item for the Higher Town Crier
(which starts an email to towncrier@gettinhigherchoir.ca)

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CHOIR COMMUNITY SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Items may be submitted to this section only by someone who is a member of our choir community due to their current or past affiliation with the GHC, HNC, Soundings or CCLT.

Content Policy

Our goal is to build community through enabling our current and past members to connect with each other by sharing their interests and by offering each other information, activities and opportunities.  The choir management reserves the right to require a re-write of, or to refuse publication of, any item submitted that it deems unsuitable.

Two simple rules of thumb that we recommend to you as a submitter are:

1 ) that you write your items from the prospective of "I support" rather than "I'm against" and "This is good" rather than "That's bad."

2) that you always stay mindful, and respectful, of the beliefs and opinions of others in our very varied community.  Particularly in submissions whose contents are religious or political in nature.  Please note that overt proselytizing in either case is not acceptable while a simple statement personal support for a religious or political group, aspect, activity or opportunity coupled with a link, or invitation, offering more information is ok.

Types of items that may be submitted

Dated Items:

for the Community Events section ~ may be submitted up to 3 Community Issues (approx. 6 weeks) prior to the event and automatically run until their date has past (see the Distribution Schedule above to plan your submissions)

Web Site Listings:

are posted permanently on our web site’s "Choir Members Web Sites" page (until updated or cancelled by the submitter) with the first 6 to 8 listings on the page automatically rotated through each Community Issue. 

General Items:

Submissions for all other sections of the newsletter ~ must be re-submitted for each issue they are to appear in

When you want an item that has appeared in one Choir Community Issue repeated in the next one simply:

copy it from the first issue (to preserve any fomatting changes I have had to make),

paste it into a new email

update it if you want, and then

re-submit it. 

This leaves the responsibility for an item's insertion in the newsletter each week with you as the person who wants it to appear and minimizes the possibility of mistakes on the part of your very fallible editor. 

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ITEM FORMATTING, WORD LIMITS, ETC.

Dated & General Items

(Date)*1

A Bold, Upper/Lower Case Title        

Copy, copy, copy, (Maximum 100 words) copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy,

Submitted by: Full Name, Choir Affiliation*2

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*1 The date above the Title appears in Community Events items only and is presented in a simple format.  For example:

(Mar 1)...for a single date

(Mar 1, 8 & 15)...for a series of dates when people can choose to come to some or all. 

(starts Mar 1)...for a series of dates when the participants are expected to commit to attending all of them. 

Note: The detailed dates for should be included in the body of all event items in whatever format suits you.

*2 Your choir affiliation could be GHC, HNC, Soundings or CCLT and needs to include your night (if GHC ), section or other connection relevant to the group you are affiliated with (ie Alto, Director, Guest Artist, etc.) CCLT grads please include the year (ie CCLT 2005), Guest Artist please include the most title and dates of the recent set of GHC Concerts you performed in.
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Please don't trust my memory.  When you submit an item to the newlsetter always include your full "Submitted by:..." line giving the following information only:

  • your First & Last Name

  • your choir affiliation (see *2 above.)

  • your night (GHC only), and

  • your section (GHC, HNC & Soundings)

The purpose of your "Submitted by:..." line is to:

  • identify you as the person responsible for the contents of your item (see more on this in Responsibility...)

  • describe your connection to our community, and

  • facilitate readers' ability to skim this long newsletter quickly and find items of specific interest by providing a consistent, and easily recognizable, visual cue of where each item ends.  

Including it in your submission saves me from having to create it for you and, if I cannot recall a required bit of information, from having to search my records for it.

Web site Listings

Your Name in Bold Text   (choir affiliation - see *2 above.)

http:www.your-web-site's.url

Copy, copy, copy, (Maximum 50 words) copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, copy,

Standard Formatting, etc. information common to all submissions

Please notice that the Item Title in all items is in bold, slightly enlarged Upper and lower case text and everything else is in a standard sized font in upper and lower case with no enlarged, CAPITALIZED, coloured or bolded words for emphasis. If these types of formatting were used freely by each item to draw attention to itself the newsletter would very quickly start to look like a visual shouting match and it would become uncomfortable to read. 

Also please do not centre your whole item.  You are, however, welcome to centre a phrase, a sentence or a small block of text within your item as long as most of the text is left justified.

Underlined and Italicized text are acceptable as they offer a measure of internal emphasis without looking like they are trying to out shout neighboring items.

The purpose of the word limits and formats specified above is to make this quite long newsletter quick to scan and easy to read. When your submition conforms to the specified formatting it also speeds up the process of putting the newsletter together.

If you can’t get all your information into 100 words please refer readers to phone numbers or web sites where they can get more information or invite them to email you for detailed information and have a comprehensive reply email ready to send them.

Another possibility would be to post a more detailed document (word, pdf, etc.) on-line and include a link to it in your item. Your item can then be written as a short, punchy teaser to get readers to click on the link for the details.  If you don't have access to a web page, blog, or other web space where you can post such documents then (and only then please) you can send the document to me as an attachment to the email containing your item.  I will post it on-line as a pdf file and insert a link to it in your item for you.

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RESPONSIBILITY FOR SUBMISSIONS
 

It would be impossible for the GHC administration to check out the veracity and value of every item submitted to the Community Issue of our newsletter.  With that in mind we ask you to please note that the appearance of any item in this newsletter does not constitute an endorsement by the GHC of whatever that item offers.  The responsibility for each item, therefore, rests with the person named in the “Submitted by…” line.  That is the reason it is there.

Submitters ~ Please be sure that every item you submit is something for which you are willing to be held responsible.  This is especially important if you are submitting an item on behalf of someone who is not personally connected with our community.  When an issue arises, even if you are not directly involved in it, you should be prepared to assist the process of achieving a resolution as the submitter of the item at issue.

Readers ~ Please be prepared to do your own "due diligence" before deciding to act on the contents of any item.   Should an issue arise an important step to take in seeking a resolution is to contact the the submitter of the item.  Even if the submitter is not directly involved in the issue and is unable to help resolve it to your satisfaction he/she needs to know what happened in order to make an informed decision about making similar submissions in the future. 

Hopefully responsible submissions and careful due diligence will eliminate the chance of issues arising. 

~ Bill

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SECTIONS YOU CAN SUBMIT ITEMS TO

The following is a list of section headings that appear in the newsletter whenever someone submits an appropriate item for them. Since they don’t all appear in every issue I am listing them here as a reminder of what is possible.

ACCOMMODATION AVAILABLE OR WANTED
APPRECIATIONS
CAR POOLING WANTED & OFFERED
CHOIR MEMBER’S WEB SITES
COMMUNITY EVENTS 
COMMUNITY MARKETPLACE
COMMUNITY MEMBER LIFE ANNOUNCEMENTS
COMMUNITY MEMBER’S WEB SITES
COMMUNITY NETWORKING
COMMUNITY SOCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
EMPLOYMENT AVAILABLE OR WANTED
FREE STUFF
GHC HOME SECTIONAL INVITATIONS
JUST FOR FUN
LOST & FOUND
OPPORTUNITIES TO SING!!!
PAST and/or DISTANT VOICES
SERVING EACH OTHER
THINGS & OPPORTUNITIES WANTED
WORD OF MOUTH / RECOMMENDATIONS

A special note regarding the Word Of Mouth/Recommendations section:

The idea for this section came from Bruce McCormack, GHC & Soundings Tenor and a GHC Registrar Emeritus. The only rule for this section is that, to quote Bruce:

"it can't be used to promote your own business or other interests. Its purpose is to support and celebrate 'others' whose businesses / actions / way of being / kind words - whatever! - have helped you, us and/or our world grow, come alive or prosper.  In other words, this section is a celebration of that time-honoured communications tradition: Word of mouth. Share away!"

Suggestions for additonal sections, for use at the discretion of the editor, are welcome

 
REQUEST OF THE EDITOR EMERITUS (with us in spirit!)
Bill Hanson's Photo
Photo by Alan Klughammer

Please ensure your submissions conform to the above guidelines.  I prefer not to edit submissions because each item should reflect what the submitter intended to say not what I think was intended.   Also, since editing items for submitters (or sending them back for editing) takes extra time, getting submissions that already conform to our submission guidelines, that I can simply copy from your email and paste into the newsletter, is truly a gift.

Sing, be and do in joy.

Bill Hanson,
GHC Registrations & Communications Emeritus

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