austraLasia 1492
Would you like to win a DVD on St. Francis de Sales and Annecy?
ROME: 17th March 2006 -- Given that today is St. Patrick's Feast day, and that here in Rome someone said to me "St. Who?", and that we ought to celebrate even though it's Lent, and that I don't have a DVD of St. Patrick, but one of St. Francis de Sales...... here is your chance!
Within the week, austraLasia should reach #1500. It seems a good opportunity to mark that as a minor milestone, in the following way. Send in an item of news before or up to March 22, that's next Wednesday. The item which is chosen from any news writeup which arrives between the moment of publication of this number #1492 and next Wednesday 22 March, 6 pm Rome time, wins the DVD.
Some indication of the criteria which will be used for the choice:
1. The quality of the content - not of the language. Given that there are many readers of austraLasia who have English as a second, third, fourth.... language, it would not be fair to include quality of English as a criterion, but it is fair to ask that the content be (a) of Salesian interest (b) newsworthy.
2. The news 'shape': no more than 3 main ideas, no more than 7 lesser details. This most likely means three paragraphs, but that is only a guide.
3. The length: guided by criterion 2, the total length should not be longer than 20 lines. It may be considerably fewer.
4. Headline, total length not exceeding 70 keystrokes. The headline to this item, for instance is a little less than that. It doesn't give you much room, I realise, but part of the test is to come up with just a handful of striking words which give the essence to the news item.
5. A one or two line summary of your news item or, rather, of the key point. Why this? For those of you who receive austraLasia by RSS/XML, you will realise that part of the trick here is to provide a one or at most two sentence summary which people see in their 'reader'. It is on that basis that they decide to read on or not. It's like picking a book off the shelf because you like the cover or the short blurb.
No other criteria! Should you have an item of news that can't wait until 22nd or until #1500, that's fine. We can publish it earlier - and if is still the best by the time #1500 comes up it still wins. Fair enough?
I look forward to responses. The last winner (who came up first with the three 'capitals' in South Africa, was from China Province and is now enjoying his 900 pages plus 'Unpublished Don Bosco'.
As they say in the classics, 'Ya gotta be in it to win it!'
_______________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
Would you like to win a DVD on St. Francis de Sales and Annecy?
ROME: 17th March 2006 -- Given that today is St. Patrick's Feast day, and that here in Rome someone said to me "St. Who?", and that we ought to celebrate even though it's Lent, and that I don't have a DVD of St. Patrick, but one of St. Francis de Sales...... here is your chance!
Within the week, austraLasia should reach #1500. It seems a good opportunity to mark that as a minor milestone, in the following way. Send in an item of news before or up to March 22, that's next Wednesday. The item which is chosen from any news writeup which arrives between the moment of publication of this number #1492 and next Wednesday 22 March, 6 pm Rome time, wins the DVD.
Some indication of the criteria which will be used for the choice:
1. The quality of the content - not of the language. Given that there are many readers of austraLasia who have English as a second, third, fourth.... language, it would not be fair to include quality of English as a criterion, but it is fair to ask that the content be (a) of Salesian interest (b) newsworthy.
2. The news 'shape': no more than 3 main ideas, no more than 7 lesser details. This most likely means three paragraphs, but that is only a guide.
3. The length: guided by criterion 2, the total length should not be longer than 20 lines. It may be considerably fewer.
4. Headline, total length not exceeding 70 keystrokes. The headline to this item, for instance is a little less than that. It doesn't give you much room, I realise, but part of the test is to come up with just a handful of striking words which give the essence to the news item.
5. A one or two line summary of your news item or, rather, of the key point. Why this? For those of you who receive austraLasia by RSS/XML, you will realise that part of the trick here is to provide a one or at most two sentence summary which people see in their 'reader'. It is on that basis that they decide to read on or not. It's like picking a book off the shelf because you like the cover or the short blurb.
No other criteria! Should you have an item of news that can't wait until 22nd or until #1500, that's fine. We can publish it earlier - and if is still the best by the time #1500 comes up it still wins. Fair enough?
I look forward to responses. The last winner (who came up first with the three 'capitals' in South Africa, was from China Province and is now enjoying his 900 pages plus 'Unpublished Don Bosco'.
As they say in the classics, 'Ya gotta be in it to win it!'
_______________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
