How to update the website and use the announcement email list.

This is some simple advice aimed at members of the initiating group and other group leaders in TV473.  We aim to share the work of publicising our activities around so it doesn't become a chore for one or two people.  It's easy to do if you can use email and a word processor.

How to update the website

To update the website (this one you are reading at http://www.transitiontowns.org.nz), you need an account.  Gaining an account is pretty much automatic, you just need an email address.  If you already have an account and are logged in, your name will appear at the top right.  If not, you can create an account on the right hand side of the page; under "Upcoming Events" there is a "User Login"  section with a "Create new account" link.

Fill in your details including your email, and the site will send you a temporary password.  Now you can log in with the temporary password, and you have to set up your permanent password.

Once you have a password and are logged in, you can click through to our page at http://www.transitiontowns.org.nz/dunedinnorth, and start editing it!  To the right of the page title at the top, you will see an "Edit" link, just click it and the page comes up in an editor inside your web browser.

What should you edit on the page?  If you know of an event (of TV473) coming up that isn't advertised on the page, put it there.  The more important stuff is at the top, with older or less relevant stuff below.  You can also click on "Create Content" and "Event" on the right hand side, and the resulting entry will be advertised on the site-wide calendar and in emails.

How to send announcement emails

We have two main email lists - tv473ig@list.king.net.nz, which goes to the Initiating Group ("committee"), and transitionvalley-announce@list.king.net.nz which goes to a list of interested people, about 170 in all.

When there is an event coming up that you want to publicise, you should send an announcement to the announcement list.  But since we don't want to overload people, we aim not to have more than about one per fortnight or one per week.  So before you send your announcement  to everyone, send it to the IG list and ask if anyone else has anything they want publicised.  Then you can collate other useful info and send a digest to the wider list.

To send an email to the announcement list, just do it in your normal email and send to announce@list.king.net.nz.  It then gets repeated to everyone.

What kind of events should we announce?  Events we are running are good candidates.  I think important aims of TV473 are to build local resiliance, build trust between NEV residents and build skills.  We are intending to transition to a lower energy society, and one important way of doing that is to model it ourselves.  Think ahead and ask, is this something we will will be doing when petrol costs $50 per litre?

A couple of things to be aware of when sending messages, make sure you don't have overly large attachments like posters and photos, since the email is going to a lot of people, some of who may be on dial-up.  There is a limit of 500kb on the size of posts to the list.  Make an effort to reduce the size of photos if you want to sent them and they are large.  Also, if you want to send a poster, the best type is a PDF which more people will be able to read than wordprocessing formats.