Notes for writing the bulletin

1. Checking the bulletin e-mail acccount

The first place to check for items for the bulletin is our "transitioncambridgebulletin" gmail account. The username is There usually isn't too much there, but whatever is there needs entering into the events-and-news management system so that it also appears on the web-site and is available for future bulletins. However we don't always use things that are sent to us - they need to relate to climate change, peak oil, reducing our footprints, building resilience or community building. We don't include things that don't fit into those categories, or that are political, illegal, strongly religious, discriminatory, or in other ways not in keeping with what transition is about. We avoid "doom and gloom" things - so we can edit text if we feel an event is important but the way it is presented is not very positive. We also cut the text down if there is more than one or two paragraphs. Usually in this case, there is another web-site to link to to get more information from, so we include a link to that. Rarely we create a new wiki page to contain the extra info, and then link to that.

2. Entering items into our events management system

First of all, you need to sign into the web-site. Click on the edit button above, enter your password, then (without changing anything) come back to this page. Now click here to get to the events management system. It should look something like this (if it doesn't, you're not logged in). You can also get to this page by clicking the link to enter items at the top of any of the news and events pages. Enter the events from the e-mails one by one (this takes a little while, but saves time later). Make sure you tick the "Accepted" button, and then click on "preview in wiki" to make sure it looks Ok, before pressing the "update events" or "update news" button, which publishes it to the web-site.

3. Creating the bulletin

Now you're ready to choose which items to include in the bulletin by ticking them in the right hand column. Once ticked, the item will be included when you press the "generate bulletin button" at the bottom of the page.

The general rule is that we include all the events in the next 2 weeks, any new events that have been added since the last bulletin (even if they are quite far off), and any new news items (transition, community or related) that have been entered since the last bulletin. Most of these will be automatically ticked. You may need to tick new events that are more than two weeks away. You can also choose to include more or less things, but please try to include most of the new things as people sometimes get upset if these are left out! (but it is up to you, so you are not obliged to include these if you don't feel they're appropriate). Often people will e-mail you (to the tcbulletin account above) if they particularly want something to be included for a special reason.

So now you can press the "generate bulletin button" at the bottom, which will generate a page of text ready to transfer into our mail sending client. Select all the text and copy it (press Control-A and then Control-C), then go to the GroupSpaces web-page.

4. Entering the bulletin into GroupSpaces

First you will need to log in. Then, under Groups / Manage, click on the Transition Cambridge link which will take you to the Group Management page, then click on the Compose button in the E-mails section. Click on the little clipboard image, and paste in the text (press Control-V).

Now you need to go through

  • tidying up and checking the text (making sure all events have basic info of date, time, place, cost, who's running them)
  • putting in the bold type
  • putting in the links (ideally checking them as you go along)
  • taking out any visible e-mail addresses and converting them to hidden ones (this has usually already been done for you).

This takes a while to do! Finally, when you're ready, you can preview the e-mail, possibly send yourself a trial version if you want to check it (not usually necessary), and then click send (it takes you through a couple of pages before it's sent - make sure you get to the end page where it says "your e-mail has been sent".

5. Putting the bulletin onto our web-site

Finally if you have time it's great if you can put the bulletin onto our web-site, but if you've had enough by this time, then Anna or Nicola will do it for you!

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