Web Site Submission Guidelines

The Grand Officers and the Web Site Team are always excited about new material for the web site. We would like to do everything possible to accommodate your telling the world about Eastern Star in California and what you and your chapter or club are doing to show that our acts are more important than our words. We are always looking for pictures and stories about what your chapter or club are doing in your community to support research projects, hospital and residential care facilities, visitations to the sick and shut-in, support of our solders overseas, and our youth groups.

How to get the Information to us:

Electronically:

If you have access to email and digital pictures, then you are ready to send you information. It is not necessary to write a fancy article in an expensive word processing package. Your article can be done directly in your e-mail program (including AOL) and sent to us. Please remember to attach your digital pictures to your e-mail so that the article and the picture do not get separated. The best pictures are those in a ".JIF" format, but you may send ".TIF" files if necessary. They are usually much larger, however, and if you don't have a high-speed type internet connection it may be a very slow process to send the photographs. If you prefer to use a word processor, we welcome those files also, however you might want to check with the chairman of the Web Site team to insure that someone on the team has access to the same word processor so that your files can be opened.

Without email:

If you don't have access to email or digital pictures, then U.S. Mail works just fine. The chairman's address is published in the Roster. Enclose your story and pictures in an envelope and send them to us. We are sorry, but we can not guarantee the return of your pictures, but if you will include a self-addressed stamped envelope we will do our level best to return them to you once we have digitized them for use on the web site.

Another option, if you don't have email, but do have a computer and digital camera would be to burn your article and photographs onto a CD and to send them to the chairman. Again, the chairman's address is published in the roster, or you may contact him by email at: todd@wlmsburg.org

General Information:

First and foremost, we do not publish home phone numbers or home addresses. This is a safety issue for all concerned.  If you have something that needs to be sent to someone (a request for a ticket to an event for example), then it will be necessary to use an email address to establish contact. This allows the receiver to satisfy themselves that they want to receive what is being sent before the package is sent. This also insures that  the receiver does not have an unknown someone pounding on their door in the middle of the night. The same safety principal applies to the publishing of phone numbers.

If necessary, we will publish business addresses or business phone numbers, including Lodge/Chapter addresses and telephone number provided they are not home addressed and phone numbers. This must not be the Secretaries home or phone number.

If you need to have a flyer published for a Grand Chapter Week activity; dinner, etc. or a state activity such as a reception for a Grand Officer, and you already have it laid out with graphics, etc., then their are a couple of options to get the information to us. First, if you have a program that will produce PDF files, this is the easiest. Their are a number available on the internet. I'm sorry we can not make a recommendation other then to tell you that we now Adobe Acrobat and Adobe PageMaker work very well. These are not a cheep program, however.

An alternative (if you don't have a PDF writer,) if you can produce your flyer in a Microsoft product (such Microsoft Word, or Microsoft Publisher, etc.) you can send the finished file to the chairman and he will turn it into a PDF file and publish your activity.

Second, if you have a particular place where you would like people to look for your flyer, please tell us. Grand Officer receptions are usually linked to the Grand Chapter Calendar activity. Grand Chapter Week activities are usually linked to the Grand Chapter Week page. If you are looking for folks to participate in a Good Idea activity where you have done and published something in the past, (Such as the annual San Diego Cookie stuffing project) please make sure we have that activity already listed (or provide us information so that we can list the activity) and tell us you would like the flyer linked there.

And last, but not least, don't forget to tell us who you are. We do not publish articles from unidentified sources. While identification in the article is not necessary, the Web Site team must know the source of the information so that we may contact the author if necessary to verify any unclear aspects of the story. Where possible, and with the permission of the author, we will include your e-mail address so that our visitors will now how to contact you should any of our readers desire more information about what you did or how you did it.

If this hasn't answered your questions about getting something on the website, then please contact the chairman.

Thanks.