Advice on compiling a good report

We welcome reports from all sectors of our community.

The Town & Village News section is extremely popular and space is always at a premium so it is vital that all reports are relevant, concise and to the point. We would be grateful if you could take a few minutes to read the guidelines given here, and take note of the style points.


Keep all reports brief:
Group meetings.
The introduction should include where and when it took place, how many were there, and any brief local notices.
If there is a speaker, please summarise the talk. With speakers, include a few details about who they are and what their talk was on and then pick out a few interesting points.
With demonstrations, if there were several describe a couple and then summarise the others.
Finish with any brief thanks, and any future dates. Ideally this should be no longer than 200 words.

Churches:
The introduction should include where and when a service or event took place.
It should say who the preacher was and give the title and general of their talk or sermon. It can mention any points of particular interest, any special guests, but should not got into too much detail of the service itself.
Finish with any brief thanks, notices of weekend services and any forthcoming events.
Clearly some periods are busier than others but in average weeks reports should be no longer than 200-250 words.

Repetition:
For a forthcoming event, eg a fete or bazaar, we welcome a short ‘advance notice’ article around one or two months in advance, and up to two articles in the weeks immediately preceding the event.
Please avoid sending items in week after week as this takes up valuable space and does become a turn-off for readers who feel they are reading the same news each week.
Items are generally not held over to run two or three times so if you wish an item to go in a second time we would suggest that you resend it.

Personal opinions:
Personal opinions should be avoided at all times as reporting in the village columns should be factual and impartial. Opinions should be directed to the letters page.
The only exception is when opinions are expressed at public/ council meetings – in those instances please state ‘Mr Smith said’ or ‘the meeting felt’ to clarify whose opinion it is.
Please do not write the first person – even if it is an organisation you are directly involved with (eg. do not put ‘We enjoyed a talk by Bob at our last meeting’).

Personal notices:
As a general rule, family notices are NOT permitted in the village columns. This takes in births, christenings, engagements, marriages, 18th birthdays, 50th birthdays or death notices. The correct place for these is a paid advertisement on our Family Announcements on pages 4, 6 and 8.
Deaths and funerals may be mentioned but the correct place for an official obituary, containg details of funeral arrangements, is the Family Announcements.

Free advertising:
The village pages are not the place for commercial advertising. Details of pub meal offers or new shops should not be included – they should place an advertisement. Recruitment advertisements are not permitted in the village pages either, be they for school dinner ladies, paid for village hall caretakers or even paperboys.

Out of area:
Columns should contain items related to that town or village only.
The place to publicise any district or countywide schemes is in the main news section of the newspaper.



Style points:

Every newspaper has a ‘style sheet’. This sets the style in which we always write certain things, eg the date. It is important for every newspaper to be consistent in the way it reports. You can greatly help us by adhering to the following styles. This is particularly important for sending via email, as all wrong styles have to be corrected at the office.

Here are some of the main Chronicle styles for you to note:

Date: This is always written day, month date
eg: Monday, October 23
NOT:
Monday, October 23rd
Monday October 23
or Monday the 23rd of October.

Time: This is always written using am or pm.
eg: 9am NOT 9.00 or nine o’clock
or 3.30pm NOT half past three or 15.30
Noon NOT 12pm

Phone numbers:
Always put in the phone area code, 01234, 01767, 01462 etc
eg 01767 222555
Do not use brackets and leave a space between the area code and the number.

Spacing:
One typing space between sentences, not two.

Capital letters:

In general, capital letters should only be given to official names. So ..

Langford Lower School
but ... the village lower school

St Andrew’s Parish Church
but ... the village parish church

Mid Beds District Council
but ... the district council, not MBDC

And ... no BBQ, bar-b-q or barbeque ... our spelling is always: barbecue!

This is meant as a snap guide and is not an exhaustive list – if you have any queries please email: Jim Stewart