2022-10 Whiringa ā-nuku Kōrero a te Tumuaki
The club has many volunteer roles that are responsible for communicating with members and publishing content and information about the club. This is about three roles that are significant to club members. These are the traditional roles of: Tramper editor; Annual editor; and Website editor or Webmaster, a role since 1997.
I believe that these three roles have, and need to have, a degree of editorial independence in the editorial decisions they make. As club members we would expect them to maintain the quality and accuracy of the publications about our club.
There are differences in processes however. As I understand it, the Tramper team has a process that takes submitted content, carries out an editorial (proofreading) process on it, refers it back to the author, and if the author is satisfied the article is published, if not, the article is not published.
On the website, which is a publishing platform, the process is often reversed. The website is used to publish content first, to ensure information on it is timely. All members of the club can, and are trusted to, contribute to it.
The webteam editorial process is carried out on content after it is added, referring changes if required back to the author, who can update the content, or withdraw the content if they are not satisfied. In this high trust environment the website works very well, many members helping keep the website current.
General Committee is the authorising body for all communications representing the club, and delegates roles to committees, members, and teams. Ultimately all roles are answerable to the General Committee, as the General Committee is answerable to all members.
There are many other communication channels used by the club. There are two electronic announcement channels, our “MailChimp” channel for administrative notices, e.g. AGM notices; and our “ttc.news” email group for club notices and information. General committee delegates to the Webmaster and webteam, who also by default support our ICT environment, the provisioning of permissions to post to these announcement channels.
Additionally the club has a Facebook page, and Twitter feed, but these require volunteer administrators and contributors for these channels for them to be more widely used and effective.
In conclusion, the Website editor has an "independent role and authority" with regard to publishing content on the website, including issues of the Tararua Tramper, delegated by the General Committee. The Club’s Website is a publication similar to the Tramper. The Webmaster's role is the same as the Tramper editor's role.