Emailed announcements go to tech-squares@mit.edu, a moderated MIT Mailman list. You can authenticate to the admin interface by password (the password is on the officers-only Passwords wiki page) or (for those who have Athena accounts and are listed as moderators) using MIT web certificates. The top right corner of the admin interface links to "pending moderator requests" (emails that haven't yet been sent through or rejected) and the list archives (in case you want to look at past emails). We currently have everybody moderated and use the approval step as an opportunity to san-check the email a final time, but if that's too inconvenient, it's possible to remove the moderation flag for somebody regularly sending announcements.
As a random note, as of September 2015, goo.gl links are likely to get spam filtered by MIT, so you should use full docs.google.com instead for things like forms.
Emailed announcements can be long and should be inclusive. Specifically, they should include date/time/location, caller and cuer, early rounds topic, upcoming dances (both Tech Squares affiliated & not), and (optional) fun stuff. Some weeks may have additional announcements. Alex has been trying to have a short table of contents (perhaps one to four words per item) at the top and similar headings before each item; it's not clear that's better than the historical "just a bunch of ---- separated items" approach, but it seems like it might be.
Sample email:
The general format of the emailed announcements goes like this:
Greetings everyone! Tech Squares will be meeting this Tuesday, 29 March in Sala. 7pm early rounds will have Phil teaching beginning waltz, followed by Ted calling squares and Phil cueing rounds at 8pm. Walkthroughs for the class will be in West Lounge.
Announcements this week:
- Club meeting (4/5)
- EC meeting (4/12)
- Class flourishes
- This date in history
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Club meeting (4/5)
Nominations are still open for our Executive Committee election in a week. You can see current nominees or nominate new people in this spreadsheet. Elections will take place during our club meeting on Tuesday, April 5 during the weekly dance. The agenda for the meeting is treasurer’s report and spring elections.
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EC meeting (4/12 @ 10:30PM)
The EC will meet in two weeks after squares for our annual standing policy review. We’ll be considering SP1 “Adopting and Amending Standing Policies” as well as other minor amendments. Alex will send details to tech-squares-discuss later this week, and if you have standing policy changes that you’d like us to consider, please let Alex (adehnert@mit.edu) or the officers (squares@mit.edu) know by next Wednesday (but the sooner the better).
At the same meeting, the EC will briefly discuss the class.
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The Spring class now knows the scoot back flourish (as well as right and left grand and weave the ring). They will learn more soon, but until then, please refrain from using flourishes they haven’t learned yet with them.
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On March 29, 1999, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the 10,000 mark for the first time, during the height of the dot-com bubble.
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Rounds(Update from 2016: with the google doc approach, officers are encouraged to put in their own announcements, so this isn't as relevant, but if we go back to some other thing, it may be useful in the future, so I'm leaving it)
From Andy Latto concerning rounds:
I'll try to send you info each week or each month, and I encourage you to nag me if I forget, but here's a way to generate default announcements.
Look at http://www.mit.edu/~tech-squares/schedules/rounds-sched.html for the schedule of what rhythm goes with what month. So Foxtrot for December, Waltz for January.
If the rhythm is X, the announcements are:
Week 1: Jessica will teach a class in X technique. Open to all, especially those planning to take Phil's X course this month.
Week 2. Phil will start a class in X. (Add something about who it's appropriate for **).
Week 3. Phil's X class continues. If you missed the first class, talk to a Rounds Coordinator, and we'll help you catch up.
Week 4 (and 5 if there is one).
**. For Beginning Waltz and Two-step; open to everyone. No rounds experience required. If you've ever thought of trying rounds, this is a great time to start! Put in whatever enthusiastic thing you like that you think will make people take the class.
Rumba, Cha Cha, and "Other Rhythms" (which will cycle between Slow Two-Step, Tango, and Jive); open to all; no rounds or X experience required.
The classes labelled "intermediate", "Cuer's choice" and foxtrot are not the best classes for a beginner. I'll try to give you some appropriate wording for who the class is for when those come up.