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) MIT web certificates. 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, September 29th in Lobdell. 7pm early rounds will have Veronica teaching tamaras, followed by Ted calling squares and Veronica cueing rounds at 8pm.
Announcements this week:- Upcoming badge order- Rounds- New announcements coordinator----Upcoming badge order:
If you would like to order a badge, please fill out the spreadsheet at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-AbFIsvdFm2I9NWAvAnzAcSnzyVZ--FsFmBT62414mg
We don't have exact pricing yet, but it will probably be about $8 for a pin-backed badge and $11 for a magnet-backed badge.
Tech Squares badges generally have the name printed in all-caps; make sure to use the capitalization that you would prefer.
Please respond by the end of Tuesday, October 6.
Rounds:
This week, Veronica will be teaching dances with tamaras. That's a round dance figure from the beginnings of modern round dancing. She will start with easy waltz and two-step dances so we can put our attention on the tamaras which are totally unique in round dancing. See the bottom of this email for Veronica's history of this figure.
New announcements coordinator:
We have a new announcements coordinator! Martha Ingols is taking over. Thanks! -Alex
We’re still accepting adjectives (and interesting facts): <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12Hzx_Bsb7jdWVk-5U6z4zUljdHZbxKCUqx1wBZwjk6k/viewform>. Adjectives will most likely continue for as long as somebody else suggests them. Thanks!----Fun stuff!
Today in 1777, Congress adopts the 'Stars and Stripes' as the official Flag of the United States. On a more technical bent, today in 1822, Charles Babbage proposed his difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society.
(End of sample)
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.
Rounds
From Andy Latto concerning rounds:
...