In-Season Schedule-Overview    Schedule-Dates    Between Season Schedule
Accessing Our Newsletters    Goals    Submission Guidelines
Responsibility For Submissions    Sections For Submissions
Editor's Request

NEWSLETTER SCHEDULES

IN-SEASON SEASON (Weekly Newsletters)

Our newsletter is issued weekly by email during the Gettin' Higher Choir's seasons. Roughly September to June with one week each missed during our Christmas break and during the break between our Fall and Spring seasons.

Schedule...alternate weeks...starting the first Friday in September for:

The Choir Admin Issue (Part 1)

Director's & Admin Notes plus GHC, HNC, Soundings & CCLT News & Business and other submissions from the choir administration only.

The Choir Community Issue (Part 2)

All submissions from past and present GHC, HNC, Soundings & CCLT members

Submission Deadline......Wednesday midnight of each week this section goes out.

Please submit your newsletter items to Bill Hanson at: bill@gettinhigherchoir.ca

Distribution....each section will be sent out on its respective Friday as soon as possible after noon

You can plan ahead for your submissions to Choir Community Issues using this schedule:                                                            

SPRING 2012 SEASON SCHEDULE
ADMIN ISSUES	COMMUNITY ISSUES
Feb 10	Feb 17
Feb 20	Feb 24
Mar 2	Mar 9
Mar 16	Mar 23
Mar 30	Apr 6
Apr 13	Apr 20
Apr 27	May 4
May 11	May 18
May 25	Jun 1
June 7 No Newsletter
COMBINED SEASON WRAP-UP ISSUE
As soon as possible after the Jun. 8 & 9 concerts (probably Jun 11 or 12)
Community Event Items can be submitted for up to 3 Community Issues in advance of the event's start date

FALL 2012 SEASON SCHEDULE
ADMIN ISSUES	COMMUNITY ISSUES
TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA
Seasonal Break
TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA
COMBINED SEASON WRAP-UP ISSUE
TBA
Community Event Items can be submitted for up to 3 Community Issues in advance of the event's start date

BETWEEN SEASONS (Summer Specials)

Between mid-June and mid-September we don't send out newsletters but there may be, from time to time, choir news and/or business that requires sending out an “Admin Summer Special.”

Whenever one of those goes out it will include any community submissions on hand (possibly just in the order received).

As with the newsletter:

Dated Events will be repeated in such specials automatically until their date has passed.

Any other items that you want repeated must be re-submitted once they appear in one of these special announcements.

In order to keep my volunteer work in providing this extra summer service to a minimum please make sure that any item you send conforms to the submission guidelines specified below on this “Using Our Newsletter” page.

As for the newsletters when choir is in season lease submit your items to: bill@gettinhigherchoir.ca

There are no guarantees when, or even if, such Summer Specials will go out so any items you submit are accepted on “standby” only.

~ Bill

ACCESSING OUR NEWSLETTERS

 

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. From time to time this eligibility may also be extended to interested guest artists.

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 detrimental to that goal.

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; particularly with regard to submissions whose contents are religious or political in nature.

Types of items that may be submitted

Dated Items:

for the Community Events section ~ may be submitted up to 6 weeks prior to the event and automatically run until their date has past

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 7 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 it is 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),

update it if you want and then

paste it into a new email and send it in again. 

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. 

Standard formatting, word limits, etc. of Dated & General items

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BOLD CAPITALIZED  TITLE        (Date)*

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 plus (if GHC) Night & Section
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* The date following the Title appears in Community Events items only and is presented in a simple format (ie "Mar 1" or "Mar 1, 8 & 15")
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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 (ie GHC, HNC, Soundings, CCLT, etc.)

• your night (GHC only), and

• your section (GHC, HNC & Soundings)

The purpose of y our "Submitted by:..." line is to:

• identify you as the person responsible for the contents of your item (more on 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 an 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.

Standard formatting, word limits, etc. of Web Site Listing items

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YOUR NAME BOLD CAPITALIZED        (choir affiliation)*

http:www.your.url

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

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* GHC, HNC or Soundings plus either your section or other connection (ie Alto, Director, Guest Artist.  CCLT grads include the year (ie CCLT 2005)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Formatting, etc. information common to all submissions

Align your item to the left please

Please notice that the Item Title in all items is in bold capitals and everything else is 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 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 and insert a link 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, as the submitter of the item at issue, you should be prepared to assist the process of achieving a resolution.

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 future submissions. 

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 - COMING WEEKS
COMMUNITY EVENTS - THIS WEEK
COMMUNITY MARKET PLACE
COMMUNITY MEMBER LIFE ANNOUNCEMENTS
COMMUNITY MEMBER’S WEB SITES
COMMUNITY NETWORKING
EMPLOYMENT AVAILABLE OR WANTED
FREE STUFF
GHC HOME SECTIONAL INVITATIONS
LOST & FOUND
OPPORTUNITIES TO SING!!!
PAST 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

EDITOR'S REQUEST