January 2005
Major Excursions Newsletter
January 2005
In this Issue…
Major Excursions has a new logo
Online updates
MEC leader website to be updated
MEC manual updated and online
AMC website
Submission of a prospectus for online use
Emergency medical and
evacuation insurance
Trip planning meeting
Reminder of MEC meeting dates
Trip submission deadlines
Submission of pictures
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Major Excursions has a new logo
The AMC marketing department has put together
a logo for our use (see above). It is available as a
downloadable JPEG file in black and green from
the leader website. You can use it for
correspondence, applications, and publications.
It has been placed on the Major Excursions
leader website for downloading.
Online Updates
There are updates to communicate regarding the
Major Excursions website and the creation of a
Major Excursions section on Outdoors.org.
MEC leader website to be updated
The MEC leader website will have a new look in
early 2005. It will be formatted differently with
frames to make it more user-friendly. Sample
forms, a crisis management/emergency contact
list, online resources and a whole host of other
documents will be added to it. An
announcement will be made on the listserv when
the new website is up and running. The current
website address for the MEC website is:
http://snebulos.mit.edu/orgs/amc/.
MEC manual updated and online
The MEC manual was updated recently. The
new policies regarding meals, airfare, van rental,
insurance and more is now contained in this
Major Excursions Newsletter
version. It is available in PDF and MS Word
formats.
AMC website – Outdoors.org
The AMC Major Excursions website is up and
running http://trips.outdoors.org/index.cfm/method/major
_excursions.default. As a reminder, the benefits
include more effective marketing and the ability
for prospective participants to download your
trip prospectus as a pdf* file. This will
significantly reduce the amount of SASE
mailings and give participants instant access to
your trip information. Furthermore, once your
trip is full or has been cancelled for some reason,
a message can be posted to that effect. Trips will
not be published online until they appear in the
magazine so that people who are technologychallenged are not at any disadvantage.
However, if you would like your trip online
earlier to maximize publication time, please
request it at the time of submission.
You should still check the Major Excursions
leader website to verify that your trip was listed
as you expected and verify it will print in the
issues you requested. Do not assume anything
since website addresses can be truncated and
telephone numbers juxtaposed.
Submission of a prospectus for online use
We will use the 50 word listing you have
provided for the magazine and can give the
internet visitor the option to click through to a
PDF of your prospectus for more information.
Participants will be able to download your trip
prospectus as a PDF* file (see next section) or
contact you as before if you do not wish to
submit one. You will have two choices for
submitting your prospectus for online use. You
can either use your own formatted document, as
long as it can be converted easily into a PDF*, or
you can choose to use a template that has been
created for this purpose. This template will be
made available on Major Excursions website
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January 2005
shortly. In both cases, prospectuses should be
forwarded to Bob Goeke at
goeke@space.mit.edu. Submission of
prospectuses does not need to happen at the time
your proposal. Once your trip has been accepted
you should plan on creating it soon after so that
it appears online by the time the magazine
publishes your trip.
Reminder of MEC Meeting Dates
*Definition of PDF
Definition of PDF: Acronym for Portable
Document Format, the *PDF* file format created
by Adobe Systems, Inc. uses the PostScript
printer description language and is highly
portable across computer platforms. PDF
documents are created with Adobe Acrobat or
other programs and can be viewed with Adobe
Acrobat Reader and other PDF reader programs
which are accessible to most users and are free of
charge.
Trip Submission Deadlines
Emergency Medical and Evacuation
Insurance
We are working toward securing a low-cost
medical and evacuation insurance policy that
would cover every participant on every trip.
Currently, this is only provided if participants
purchase the recommended AMC trip insurance
which offers cancellation and interruption
coverage in addition to medical and evacuation.
To secure the low-cost the insurance would be
mandatory for all trips, and the cost of it would
be built into your trip budget after the overhead
is calculated. Rates are very competitive and
range from as little as $10-12 for a domestic trip
of less than 10 days, and $34 for a 3-week
international trip.
The AMC’s annual meeting will be held at the
Westin Hotel in Waltham, MA on February 5th at
8:30am. The Spring Gathering will be held April
29-May 1 in Pennsylvania. If you would like to
attend one of these meetings, please RSVP to
Stacia at mecchair@amcboston.org or 781-2394005.
This is a reminder that trips must be submitted at
least two weeks in advance of the meeting in
which you would like the proposal approved.
The deadline for the Annual Meeting has passed,
so the next deadline is Apil 16th for the Spring
Gathering.
Submission of Pictures
Stacia is collecting pictures to be used in various
AMC publications, printed and online. If you
have a picture you wish to submit, please send it
to Stacia as a JPEG, GIF or TIFF at
mecchair@amcboston.org. It should be good
quality, and preferably a group shot rather than
of scenery. If it is used for commercial
publication then you will be asked to get
permission from the people in the picture. There
are some examples in this newsletter submitted
recently.
The MEC has not yet voted on the inclusion of
this insurance, but so far the leaders for 2005
seemed favorable to including it. More
information will be provided to you as soon as
the policy has been updated and voted on by the
MEC.
Trip Planning Meeting
There will be a trip planning meeting at AMC
Headquarters (5 Joy Street, Boston) on February
13th at 11am. Lunch will be provided. If you
wish to attend, please RSVP to Erika Bloom at
ebloom1@comcast.net.
Major Excursions Newsletter
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