Update To The Membership: The Communications Committee

As most of you know, the Communications Committee has, in the past, taken responsibility for producing The Catch and the NHRC listserve. At the recent Board meeting it was decided that to improve cohesion in all club communications, the committee would be restructured and expanded.

Claire Potter will continue as the Board member chairing the committee, in partnership with John Poole. Nancy Brackett has agreed to serve on the Sunshine Committee, which will now be a sub-committee of Communications. Sam Gambrell, the webmaster, will also be part of the committee.

Here is a brief review of our procedures and platforms, so that you may direct any news to the correct people. Please copy Claire and John on any communications with a committee member so that they can double-check that your message is going to the right place and/or speak to you about the appropriateness of the platform you have chosen.

The Sunshine Committee: This committee is primarily tasked with circulating news of life events that club members wish to be generally known within our community: births, deaths, adoptions, illnesses, graduations, a new home, marriages and new jobs are all good examples of news that you might wish to have shared. Nancy will also make arrangements on behalf of the club, paid for from money raised by our Saturday breakfasts (thank you, Dianne Kelley for agreeing to coordinate these for another year!), in the event that flowers or a donation in lieu of flowers is appropriate for a given occasion.

Sunshine Committee news will be sent out via the list serve, unless you indicate a desire for your news to go on The Catch as well. Please remember, however, that The Catch is not restricted to club members, and that any news put up there is accessible to anyone in a routine Google search. The list serve is semi-private: only registered users (specifically, people with registered email addresses) can submit and receive email, and the communications committee controls who these registered users are. Non-registered email addresses cannot send to, or receive mail from, the list serve. Being on it does not make you vulnerable to unwanted email from spammers or non-members.

That said, please be aware that news sent out via the list serve ends up on the desktops of around a hundred people: all active members from the roster, and a few selected coaches and friends. Any messages that you wish to send only to closest friends or boat mates within the club should go out via your own email lists: you will periodically receive an updated membership roll from Dianne Kelly so that you can create them yourself.

The Catch: What you are reading now is a blog (short for "web log") that, several years ago, replaced the digital newsletter ably produced for many years by Baxter Walsh. Primarily written by John and Claire, contributors to The Catch include other members of the club as well. If you would like to be one of them, let us know! You may also send us things you have written, reports on events, links to other sites, and issues you would like covered. We vet all posts for good taste, including our own, but we have a broad editorial policy.

Our view is that The Catch should contain items that are of interest to the club. It might be a link to a good article, regatta photos, or posts like this one that notify the membership at large about an organizational matter. As we said above, please remember that anyone in the world can access The Catch. It is not an appropriate place for information that you would consider too personal for anyone other than a friend -- an employer, a landlord, an estranged family member -- to know.

The NHRC website: This is the most public face of the club; it is the site to which we direct prospective members and participants in our regattas (several thousand people a year fall into this second category, hence its importance.) Its use is highly restricted. We are happy to accept any suggestions about improvements that can be made. Please make those suggestions directly to Sam, and copy to Claire Potter and the president of the club, Wayne Huskes.

A Final (But Important) Note: Any member of the club can send an email to the membership via the listserve, either by initiating an email with the correct group address (contact John Poole if you don't have it) or by hitting "reply all" to an email you have received from the listserve. In the past, club members have complained about being deluged with emails from the club that were unwanted, irrelevant and/or in bad taste. Please remember that when you hit "reply all," you reply to the whole club, cluttering their inboxes and perhaps broadcasting a message you intended for only one person. By hitting only "reply" you can respond directly to the person who wrote the email without involving the rest of us.

In addition, we ask you to restrict any use of the listserve to club business only. When in doubt, view this narrowly and ask for the opinion of a member of the communications committee before you send the email. Please do not use the listserve to:

*Air personal disputes, grievances or misunderstandings;
*Advertise business or commercial opportunities;
*Sell personal goods that are not rowing-related;
*Recruit for a charity (these items may be sent to The Catch for publication, however);
*Forward amusing or any other type of spam you have received;
*Participate in club-wide banter about a message received via the listserve.

The committee will be meeting soon as a group to discuss our agenda for the coming year: please send any suggestions and/or concerns about the committee' work to Claire at tenured DOT radical AT gmail DOT com. Click here if you are in any doubt that we wish to communicate with you!