This committee (the BBComm) is the small, dedicated group of people who do the work of planning Bayou Bedlam each year.
It is not for Bayou Bedlam volunteer jobs that are not directly involved with planning. To volunteer for one of those, please email vol@bayoubedlam.org. Thanks!
Please do not volunteer for the BBComm if you can not or will not actively participate in all planning discussions and decisions, both in emails and in meetings.
It's a committee: a team that does its work through discussion and consensus. When members don't participate yet stay on the committee:
It's difficult to know if a true consensus has been reached. Too often we've had committees of 10-12 people but only 4 bother to participate. Four out of ten is not a majority, much less a consensus.
Waiting on replies that never come while also wanting to give everyone a chance to have a say is very frustrating for the chairperson. It is one of the reasons that individuals refuse to chair the committee more than once or twice. Working with a good team is rewarding, but trying to herd cats isn't.
It's also rude and disingenuous for someone to volunteer and then effectively disappear.
Note that the BBComm always has an open-to-all listening party when choosing the next band and caller, and that many volunteers are needed for important jobs other than planning.
The BBComm Email Group
The BBComm email group is a private group for the members of the planning committee. info@bayoubedlam.org is the public email for Bayou Bedlam and forwards to the chairperson, who can forward appropriate emails to the group.
Emails sent to the group from a non-member must be cleared by a moderator (usually the chairperson), or the moderator can forward the emails to the group from their personal account.
It has these advantages over our old ways of BBComm emails:
Members subscribe and unsubscribe themselves; no single person has to spend time maintaining the list for everyone else.
Committee members don't need to create and keep updating their own personal email lists, a process that never worked.
Any member can see who else is subscribed and on the committee, although that requires logging in (see Your personal account below).
Members don't receive multiple emails when someone replies to a message.
There is a searchable message archive.
A calendar, a wiki, and other tools are available.
Subscribing
If you have not received an invitation, you must request to join the group by visiting the group's website (groups.io/g/bbcomm ) or by sending an email to bbcomm+subscribe@groups.io.
New subscribers must be approved by a group moderator. This is an anti-spam measure required by groups.io. If you've received an invitation to join the Bayou Bedlam planning committee, you'll be approved ASAP.
You can send email with HTML formatting but unusual fonts, colors, and backgrounds will be stripped.
Unsubscribing
You can unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any group email, by visiting the group's website, or by sending an email to bbcomm+unsubscribe@groups.io.
Please unsubscribe if you stop actively particpating! This group is not for lurkers.
Your Personal Account
Group members are able to send and receive messages without ever logging in to the groups.io site.
However there are advantages to logging in to your personal account. Once logged in, you will be able to
set a password for future logins
edit your subscription preferences
view the directory of members
view the message archive
view and edit the calendar and wiki
create polls
Logging In
In order to log in, you can
use the link in your welcome email, or
use your password, or
use the "Email me a link to log in" link on the login page, or
use Facebook or Google logins.
Limited Storage
Free accounts on groups.io are limited to 1 Gb of storage. That's a lot, but we have more at Dropbox. We also have an archive on Dropbox going back several years, so please continue to archive files there rather than on groups.io.
Attachments, photos, and other files count against the storage limit, but email messages do not.
Email Attachments
Attachments under 100 Kb are allowed. This is more than enough for spreadsheets, text documents, and many PDFs.
It's best to not send a photo in an email. Put photos in Dropbox instead. If you forget and send a photo in an email, it will be resized to a maximum size of 488 x 488 pixels.
Remember to archive important documents in the Dropbox folder.
Wiki
The group has a wiki that can be edited by any subscriber.
Photos and images can be inserted into the wiki, but they will be resized to a maximum of 1024 x 1024 pixels.
Calendar, Files, and More
The group's calendar can be edited by any subscriber. The calendar can send out invitations and reminders.
There is a files section, but please use Dropbox instead for long-term storage.
Groups.io archives all messages. The messages are viewable by subscribers and can be downloaded if needed.
Questions?
If you have questions about the BBComm group that are not answered here you can
Folders and files can be shared either for editing (full control) or viewing/downloading. In practice, only a very few people actually create or edit files. Most people only need viewing privileges.
Editors may need a Dropbox account. Viewers do not.
Privileges and Warning
Under current policy, anyone who has editing privileges can share the folder or files with anyone else.
Editors are able to
edit any file or subfolder. This includes creating, deleting, editing, and moving files and folders.
invite anyone to join the Bayou Bedlam Folder. The new joiners will also have full editing privileges.
These privileges are a security risk. But as long as no one goes rogue or scatterbrain it also means that no one person has to spend time caretaking the folder.
Please be careful that you don't unintentionally delete or move a file or folder, and do not invite anyone to join who has no pressing need to edit the Bayou Bedlam files and archives.
For the same reasons, former committee members who no longer need access or editing privileges should have their access removed. The risk of accidental deletion of important documents increases with the number of people who can edit the folder.
Saving Files
HATDS documents must be saved in a file format that is a) readable and editable across operating systems and office software, and b) is hopefully future-proof. The Microsoft Open XML formats (.docx and .xlsx) are preferred.
