Exec report - VOCene Editor 2016 - 2017

VOCene Editor: Birgit Rogalla

Ok, so here is my "how to" on being the VOCene editor. VOCenes normally get sent out on Tuesday, so that people hear about slideshows in time and attend pre-trips. Don't worry if you have to send it out on a Wednesday instead for a week. Generally writing the VOCene and related activities take me about three hours per week + meeting times.

How to:

The program we use to send out VOCenes is called Mailchimp. You'll get a login to use it, it's pretty easy to get the hang of. To start off, go to the 'campaigns' section and then duplicate the previous campaign. Change the subject line (VOCene #1 will be your first VOCene!) and add your content. Once you've figured out how the program works, feel free to play around with the layout if you want. You can select who you send the VOCene to, so if you're testing out different versions, make a list containing only yourself.

There is also an option to schedule the VOCene on Mailchimp. This is useful if you are away for a trip, as you can prepare the VOCene beforehand and then schedule it to send out on Tuesday.

Emails sent to [email protected] should be redirected to your email address.

What to include:

To find the content for the VOCene you should:

• Go to the exec meeting.
• Read the trip agenda.
• Read the message board.
• Talk to people.

The sections that I included in the VOCene this year were:

• Photo of the week --- sometimes I got submissions, often I had to ask people for pictures, so start early.
• Trips --- advertise and briefly descibe the trips happening this week and next week (don't include them if they're already way overfull or the pre-trip has happened already).
• Past trips --- include trip reports that have been published in the past week and pictures + brief summaries of trips that happened. You might (will) need to bug people to get these.
• Message board notes --- links and short sentence about some of the important items or discussions on the message board.
• Quote of the week --- share some of your favourite quotes!
• Ms. Manners --- be creative and enjoy!

With occasional addition of these sections:

• Special notice at the top.
• Tips and advice column.
• Recipes from the Wiki.
• Ye Olde VOC --- stories from the past.

Advice:

• Getting input from Members is often difficult, be persistent in bugging them.
• Only send one email per week to minimize annoyance.
• Sometimes people will request that you put something in that does not belong. You'll have to figure this out and reply to people explaining your decision.
• Keep the mailing list up to date.

Feel free to ask me questions!