Weekly announcements are one of the main ways we communicate with the group as a whole. The announcements are emailed to tech-squares@mit.edu, put on our homepage, and read at Squares that night. If you're writing the announcements, make sure a paper copy of them gets to Squares so people can add more announcements and read it in the club meeting. The general format of the emailed announcements goes like this:
Greetings everyone! Tech Squares will be meeting this Tuesday, June
the 14th, in Sala. 7pm early rounds will be taught by Phil Gatchell
and will be rumba. 8pm dancing will be in Sala, with Sean Crist
calling squares and Phil Gatchell cueing rounds.
This week, Phil will be starting a class teaching Rumba during early
rounds. This class is open to all, with no rounds or previous rumba
experience required.
Fun stuff!
- Today in 1777, Congress adopts the 'Stars and Stripes' as the
official Flag of the United States. On a more technical bent,
today in 1822, Charles Babbage proposed his difference engine in
a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society.
So what would go on the website is just the announcement about rounds. The website automatically updates the dance schedule but rounds are a little more specific. Usually there are also a few more announcements; this is a template. Notice that the announcement, which is sent out on Monday, includes information about the rounds happening the next day. The printed announcements should contain next week's rounds schedule. From Andy Latto concerning rounds:
I'll try to send you info each week or each month, and I encourage you to nag me if I forget, but here's a way to generate default announcements.
Look at http://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/~tech-squares/schedules/rounds-sched.html for the schedule of what rhythm goes with what month. So Foxtrot for December, Waltz for January.
If the rhythm is X, the announcements are:
Week 1: Jessica will teach a class in X technique. Open to all, especially those planning to take Phil's X course this month.
Week 2. Phil will start a class in X. (Add something about who it's appropriate for **).
Week 3. Phil's X class continues. If you missed the first class, talk to a Rounds Coordinator, and we'll help you catch up.
Week 4 (and 5 if there is one).
**. For Beginning Waltz and Two-step; open to everyone. No rounds experience required. If you've ever thought of trying rounds, this is a great time to start! Put in whatever enthusiastic thing you like that you think will make people take the class.
Rumba, Cha Cha, and "Other Rythms" (which will cycle between Slow Two-Step, Tango, and Jive); open to all; no rounds or X experience required.
The classes labelled "intermediate", "Cuer's choice" and foxtrot are not the best classes for a beginner. I'll try to give you some appropriate wording for who the class is for when those come up.
As of right now (Sept 25, 2011), Dennis will put the announcements on the website if they're emailed out. If I stop doing that, I'll write instructions on how to put those up.