Newsletter

The club newsletter, The Spokesperson, provides an open forum for club announcements, activities, and for members to share their cycling interests.

The Spokesperson is distributed free of charge to the homes of OBC members as part of their membership benefits. It is also available at most bicycle stores in the National Capital Region. Please note the printed versions are in black and white.

On-line Access

Full colour copies of the latest version of The Spokesperson along with back issues are available on-line in the Members Zone area of the Club Bulletin Board. All current club members with a valid bulletin board id will be able to login. If you do not have a bulletin board if, you must first create one.

If you have difficulties accessing the newsletter on-line, please contact the OBC webmaster.

Submissions

FREE submissions include touring stories, race results, letters, articles, pictures, announcements, and just about anything related to cycling except commercial advertising. Members (and non-members) are invited to submit such material for publication in The Spokesperson. We prefer submissions using e-mail attachments directly to the editor but will also accept them by fax, by regular mail, or you can drop your item off at the club office during regular office hours.

Submission Guidelines

Format of submissions in order of preference:

• RTF (.rtf) format text files (as an e-mail attachment)
• e-mail text (we will copy and paste it to RTF)
• other word processing software formats (Word, WordPerfect)
• legible fax or paper copy (short items only!)

We ask that your submission be kept to 800-900 words. This is about one full page including a small picture in the current style of The Spokesperson.

Pictures or images should be sent in JPEG (.jpg) or GIF (.gif) format as attachments. If you send an actual photograph, we will scan it for you only if we decide to use the photo in the newsletter.

Submissions in either English or French are welcome, but please consider that the majority of club members speak English as a first language.

Every reasonable effort will be made to accommodate submissions within the specified deadline. If, for whatever reason, your submission cannot be included in a particular issue, it will be retained for later publication. Your submission will be checked for spelling and grammatical errors. Articles may also be edited for length to fit available space.

Items of a commercial nature are considered advertising and will only be used if submitted as such. Please contact the newsletter editor for required commercial ad format.

Submission Deadlines

In general, the submission deadlines for each issue are the second Wednesday following the first non-holiday Monday in the month (in other words, the second Wednesday after OBC board meetings).

Classy Ads

The Spokesperson provides members with free classified ads for cycling related personal notices and items for sale. Members may have no more than five ads running simultaneously. These must be of a non-commercial nature. Non-members may place an ad up to 30 words for $10. More information is available on the Classy Ads page.

The easiest way to send your classy ad is by using the Classy Ads webpage.  You can send by e-mail, or fax.

For personal businesses we recommend a business card ad. Commercial paid advertising is accepted in various sizes. Our advertising rates and additional details regarding commercial postings are available from the newsletter editor.

Who Does What

The director of the newsletter portfolio for the 2009-2010 term is Henry Drystek. The production and mailing logistics are ensured by Rosmarie Gerber, our office administrator, with the help of other volunteers. Member Bram Moerman produces the mailing labels in bulk mailing sequence.

The Spokesperson (ISSN 1197-776X) is printed by the Tri Graphic Printing of Ottawa based on a PDF file.