Paint Branch Electronic Town Square

PBUUC Message Board | Unofficial Blog | Mail Lists

The Paint Branch Message Board

The Paint Branch Web site provides a message board that is found at http://www.pbuuc.org/forum; which provides the electronic equivalent of both hallway bulletin boards and of Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park. Posting is strictly restricted to registered members, in order to prevent unwanted postings from purveyors of pornography, online casinos, or Saddam's gold.

The Bulletin Board section contains four forums, the first of which is restricted to a small group of Official Posters (nominally the Church Administrator, minister(s), and Board President) empowered to post official announcements. The remaining three are open for all registered users to post. These forums are:

OFFICIAL: Breaking News provides up to the minute news on weather cancellations and other unplanned events
OFFICIAL: Paint Branch Events promotes events sponsored by Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church
Related Events promotes other events of interest to the Paint Branch Community
Notices allows users to post any form of bulletin board announcement, which may include advertisements, We Care information (such as who needs a ride to church) and the like.

All of these forums are visible to the entire Internet; they are intended to promote our community and give Paint Branchers areas where they can participate in said promotion. Each of them has a "sticky" posted at the top of the forum expanding on its intended use. The Official Posters will moderate this area, which means that if someone posts an ad for a housemate in the "Paint Branch Events" forum, a gentle reminder to post in the right location will follow.

The Say Anything section contains

Paint Branch's Ministry is an area for discussing our ministries; worship, religious exploration, arts, and social action. And how our community supports each other's religious growth and pastoral needs.
Church Business is where we can talk about the vital but less visible issues such as finance, personnel, and building & grounds. The work that has to be done to create the space needed to carry out our liberal religious mission.
Joys, Concerns & Kudos -- like Joys & Concerns at Sunday's service, one can share the ups and downs of life that really matter. But we should also give thanks for all the volunteers who make things go around Paint Branch, or the people who help us when we need it the most. So on the Web, we have added the Kudos to Joys & Concerns.
pbuuc.org feedback is where people can suggest improvements to the www.pbuuc.org Web site.
Free for All -- not only can you say anything, this is for any non-PBUUC related topics, not just church related topics.

"Say Anything" means just that -- you can say, well, anything. The only rule is that this board is associated with a Unitarian Universalist church and that posters should act accordingly. Well, that's assuming UUs want to be ethical about fair use aspects of copyright law and will respect the worth and dignity of other posters by refraining from stalking and harassment, but we think that is a reasonable assumption about our way of life! We also expect a little respect for the topics associated with a forum; for example, we shouldn't be discussing next year's budget in Joys, Concerns & Kudos.

Registering for the Paint Branch Forum

If you are interested in being able to post as well as read, the registration link is at the upper right of the page. The message board administrator must activate your user account; it is how we prevent unwanted postings from purveyors of pornography, online casinos, or Saddam's gold. This activation will usually be within a day. At this point you will be able to post.

The steps for registering are as follows. You might want to open these instructions in a separate window from the forum.

Go to the forum at http://www.pbuuc.org/forum.
Click on the "Register" link in the upper right hand corner of the page
You will then see the boilerplate registration agreement put up by the software. Click on the age appropriate link. We aren't expecting huge interest among the under-13 crowd, but you never know.
At this point a form comes up where you enter user and password information. You must choose a readily identifiable username -- the forum administrator must know who you are to activate your account. You can change usernames later.
NOTE: two forum users can't use the same e-mail address. So couples sharing e-mail will need to share, or contact the board administrator (mstark AT pbuuc.org) to create a pbuuc.org forwarding address to use.
Enter the authorization code ("pbuuc") and the randomly generated confirmation code in the appropriate spaces. [we arechecking case sensitive nature -- treat as case sensitive until we have accurate instruction here]
You can also edit other fields in your configuration; the most commonly used is the signature, which serves a similar purpose to e-mail signatures. You will have to scroll to see them all, unless you have a huge screen.
When you are happy with your entries, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and hit the submit button.
Once you submit, you will get an e-mail acknowleding that you registered. Save this; it has your password in case you forget it.
At this point the message board administrator will activate your account. If your name is not in the PBUUC phone directory it will take a little extra time to confirm your identity with the Church Administrator or the New Member Ministry Team.
You will receive a second e-mail when your account is actually activated.
And then you are ready to post, and you also will see a few more forums when you log in than you saw before. These are the "say anything" forums that are only visible to and writable by registered users.

Unofficial Blog and Message Board

In addition to the Paint Branch Message Board, we have the Paint Branch Blog and its associated Message Board . As the blog's slogan indicates, this blog and message board is "Totally Unofficial, Sometimes Informative, Always Opinionated". By this we mean

The Message Board and Blog are Paint Branch oriented, but maintained on separate servers by different people from this web site.
The opinions expressed in these areas do not necessarily represent official Paint Branch policy, as voted on by the Board of Trustees or the congregation at congregational meetings.
These areas are very loosely regulated, to assure a wide-ranging discussion. Keep away from swear words (the alleged profanity filter doesn't work), don't violate copyrights, and don't stalk/threaten anyone and all will be cool.
To post on the Message Board, you must register. You can do whatever you like for a screen name, but it would be nice if you entered your real name in the appropriate field so people can know who you are.
The Blog is managed by John Bartoli, Paul Wester and Ken Montville; only they have posting privileges. If you want to post on the Blog front page, contact one of them via e-mail and they will post, absent any violation of our very loose set of rules.

The best thing you can do is just poke around, and contact Ken or John if you run into any problems.

There is some thought of the "Say Anything" area on the church web site ultimately merging with the unofficial message board. The "say anything" intent is the same in both places, the question is whether the existing blog community decides to move or not.

Mailing Lists

PBUUC prides itself on providing a close-knit community for members to be a part of. One way of maintaining that community during the week is through the various mailing lists that are currently available. To join any of the mailing lists, please send an e-mail to the contacts listed below.

PBUUC e-mail List Serve: You can join the PBUUC list-serv at any time by writing to Tom Raffa (tcraffaNOSPAM@adelphia.net -- remove NOSPAM before mailing) and asking to be put on the list. This list is only for posting emergencies and announcements regarding Paint Branch activities. It is not a chat group.

Paint Branch Nature Spirituality Circle explores Earth-centered religions of various traditions. We celebrate the seasons and honor God-Goddess within all and beyond all, in a multitude of forms. We hold Circle rituals and other events at members' homes or at the church. We also occasionally hold public rituals and Enrichment Hour events. All are welcome to join this Circle. Rituals and other events are posted on the Circle listserve. To join this mailing list, send a blank e-mail message to PBUUC-NSC-subscribe@yahoogroups.com with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.

Mothers of Young Children meet socially (without the kids) every month for relaxed conversation at the home of a fellow member. A great way to wind down at the end of a busy week, this group provides us with a way to get to know the other moms at PBUUC, a forum for discussing issues of concern or interest (not necessarily having to do with children), and an opportunity to talk at length with each other without having to stop and pour juice or settle disputes. Get-togethers are usually on the third Friday of each month at 7:30 p.m. To get on the mailing list, contact Julie Dahmer.

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