Submitting Articles and Announcements for USH Publications

Submitting Articles and Announcements for USH Publications

This email is directed to those who submit articles for the Meetinghouse Messenger, Meeting House Weekly and USH-Enews. The Messenger is the newsletter publication issued monthly on paper that is also distributed in electronic form. It is issued 10 months each year shortly before the first of each month. The web electronic weekly newsletter, the USH-Enews, is issued most Thursdays, and the Meeting House Weekly announcement sheet appears in the Order of Service each Sunday.

1. The deadline for submitting proposed articles for the Meetinghouse Messenger is the 15th of the previous month.

2. The minister’s monthly column should be about 480 words; as measured by Microsoft Word that is about a page in length ( see the tools menu) Service listings should be more or less like the example below:

xx/xx/xx - The Central Role of Community Service in the Unitarian-Universalist Faith - - What is the role of community service in Unitarian Faith? As individuals, what are the ways in which we can contribute to a better world? Charles Huntington (USH President)

The President, RE Director and Treasurer should aim at about 250 words or so. Mattie submits whatever she feels helpful for the music planned for the month’s services. If you write about something meriting a longer article that is fine just so you have these general guidelines in your head.

Others seeking publicity for their councils, sub-councils and associated events - Please prepare your announcements, as you would like them to appear. Remember there will be a space limitation in the Meetinghouse Messenger and Meeting House Weekly and your publicity should appear in a timely way, but not be so redundant or early that readers will ignore it. Generally, announcements or event descriptions in the USH-Enews will appear once and thereafter be referenced by link until the event date has passed.

3. Please submit the articles as Microsoft Word documents attached to an email message (if possible). This format is helpful because there are no hard carriage returns (these are line breaks that will not automatically adjust when margins are changed) found when you use email software that does provide html format. (BTW Many of you have email programs that permit you to use html format. You should choose that format as it transmits better to a variety of email reading programs and will not look ragged on the receiver’s screen no matter what the reader has selected as font and size for display on their screen. And it will have no excess carriage returns when we copy the information for use in our publications.)

4. Please prepare proposed articles and announcements as you would like them to appear. Work from the most important to the least important information within the article, if possible; it will help in the editing.

5. Send proposed articles for the Meetinghouse Messenger to: messengernews(at symbol)ushartford.com not later than the 15th of the month before publication.

Items for the USH-Enews should be sent to dcnewton(at symbol)ushartford.com by 4:30 PM on Wednesday for publication Thursday morning. Submission on Monday or Tuesday is obviously helpful.

Items for the Meeting House Weekly for the coming Sunday should be directed to Rosie rosierindfleisch(at symbol)ushartford.com. Items should be brief, describe events directly related to USH and be in her hands not later than Thursday, 10:00 AM

When considering either Messenger or Enews or Meeting House Weekly for submissions, please think of these facts. Length does not matter much for the USH-Enews and it is close to an instant publication. Also it seems to be read between Thursday morning and Sunday by about 200 readers from September through June. The Meetinghouse Messenger reaches the same audience on line and probably (a guess) perhaps another 75 paper version readers who get around to reading it over a period of 10 days or so. An additional group may read on web or paper version from time to time. Some overlap between the Messenger and USH-Enews is necessary but a great deal is somewhat annoying to the core readers of both. The Weekly reaches those sitting in the pews on Sunday and has a two page length limit.

6. Brian is now maintaining the grand calendar of USH events. You can see this calendar on line and should clear proposed facility space use with Brian as you schedule your event(s).

7. For any of the publications, it is most helpful if you will submit your articles and notices within the time frame for expected publication rather then sending them with a request to be held for the next publication cycle.

Revised 08-02-07

Let us know of any comments, errors and corrections - thanks (revised 08/02/07)