AIVC Electronic Communications

The objective of AIVC Communications Systems is to enable member clubs to get information to fellow members in other Clubs more quickly than is possible by (paper) mail.

It uses e-mail to distribute information in a matter of hours or days rather than the longer timescales of Newslines publication. Thus it is ideal for time-critical information, e.g. about events, activities, weekends and roadshows.

The system complements - and does not replace - Newslines which continues to provide a paper-based service of news and event information.

How does it work?

Information is sent out by e-mail over the Internet using a private and confidential email list group in the long established Yahoo Groups service. This service is already used by many clubs in IVC to provide private internal communication services between members.

To use it, clubs will need to have one or more e-mail addresses which they can use to send information to and receive information from other clubs in the AIVC. To qualify as a suitable email address, the AIVC Committee recommend that IVC Clubs only use email addresses that are known to be checked at least three times per week.

How does our club join the service?

The Yahoo group has been set up such that each email address may only be joined to the service by invitation from one of the service moderators. Therefore all requests to join the service must be made through either the AIVC Secretary, the AIVC News Officer or the AIVC Communications Officer who will pass the request on to a moderator for the requestors identity to be confirmed.

Requests to join the service should be directed to one or more of the email addresses below. The request must clearly state the name of the club the requestor is associated with so that their identity can be confirmed with the appropriate club secretary.

• secretary@ivc.org.uk
• news@ivc.org.uk
• comms@ivc.org.uk

The identity of the holder of each registered email address must be confirmed prior to being invited to join the service by a moderator. This is to preserve the confidentiality of the personal details contained in the messages. The AIVC Secretary shall retain the right to have any email address suspended or removed from the system, for any defined period of time, if there are complaints about abuse or misuse of the system that warrent such action.

Clubs can provide as many email addresses as they wish to which the information is sent. All these addresses - and changes thereto - must be sent to the AIVC Secretary. Up to three of these addresses may then also be published in the AIVC address list (just as mail addresses are). Since the content is about activities and events, these three e-mail addresses they should be of club officers who deal with events (e.g. bulletin editor or activities organiser).

The e-mail address of the group to which clubs send information is published in Newslines. The wish is that this address will not change; but a change might be forced on us, e.g. by reorganisations among Internet access providers.

Who moderates the service?

It is expected that all those AIVC Regional Organizers and AIVC Officers with the necessary equipment, will be appointed as moderators to the service.

Information will be sent out immediately once it has been approved by a moderator. This is to reduce the volume of 'junk' mail and so that the information arrives in time for the preparation of (most) club bulletins.

All information is sent to all clubs as a single e-mail message and will only be sent to e-mail addresses that clubs have formally provided to the AIVC Secretary. The information will also be available on the Yahoo Groups Web site to those members with an authorised email address and password.

Information sent in about an event should include at least the following (preferably in the same order):

• date
• title
• place
• name and phone number of a contact point

It should be in flat text, with no graphics (e.g. maps) or other font options (e.g. italics or bold). This is a compromise; many bulletins do use such options and the bulletin entries are more readable, more attractive, as a result, but there is no common style let alone a common word processing package in use; so flat text gives the recipient the most straightforward task to convert it to their club's chosen format.

A flat text entry also keeps the size of the email message small for those accessing their email via a phone line and modem. Large messages are generally not welcome since they take a long time to download and therefore may be refused by a moderator.

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