PCA Unit Updates

Reports for the PCA Executive Council

PCA by-laws require association committees to submit a report to the PCA Executive Council for each of its quarterly meetings detailing recent and future activity, as well as budgetary information.  PCA divisions, special interest groups (SIGs), and regional chapters are encouraged to do the same.  The PCA secretary will e-mail a reminder to all committee chairs and division/SIG/regional chapter representatives approximately two weeks prior to each meeting.  (In order to view the by-laws, you'll need to use the [free]    document reader.

Update Articles for PCA, Inc.

PCA committees are asked to submit an update article for each issue of PCA, Inc.  (PCA divisions, SIGs, and regional chapters typically have their own newsletters.)  The purpose of the article is similar to that of the executive council report:  to update the association's members on the activities of your committee, including budgetary information. 

Click here to submit your committee's update article.

PCA Web Page Publication Policy

The PCA Web site represents one the association's primary marketing and communications tools.  Averaging almost a thousand visitors each month, it's a powerful one at that!  Essential to an effective Web presence is a well-developed Web page publication policy for guiding those who are responsible for the site's development and maintenance.

Those who construct or revise Web pages for the PCA's units--PCA division, special interest group, and regional chapter representatives, PCA committee chairs, and other PCA officials (or their designees)--should consider broader issues such as what information to provide, how that information can be presented clearly, concisely, and attractively, how that information and the page, itself, will be kept current, who the page’s audiences are, and how to organize the page so it is easily navigable and user-friendly.

The following three checklists are meant to be helpful in the production and maintenance of useful, attractive, user-friendly Web pages.

Elements to be Placed on the Web Page

• text content

  • use Arial, Verdana, or Times New Roman, the three most popular font types on the Web

  • use up to three, but no more than three, different font sizes to indicate section headings, and a fourth font size to indicate normal text (typically 9-, 10-, or 12-pt.)

  • limit text adornment to bold face and italics

  • don't underline, as underlining on a Web page indicates a link

  • use strike-throughs for deletions and highlights for additions

• bullets/numbering and tables, when possible

• images (but not too many, and not too large); for PCA divisions, special interest groups, and regional chapters, one of those images should be a Web-optimized PCA unit logo, provided that the PCA unit has its own logo

• PCA unit contact information (e.g., committee chair, division president, etc.), including an official’s name, phone number, and e-mail address

Note:  The PCA Webmaster will insert other page elements such as the PCA logo, sidebar links, footer information, etc.

Appropriate Formats (in order of preference)

• as a Rich Text Format (RTF) file, a type of file that most word-processing applications can generate (when you're finished creating the document, you "save-as" the file as an RTF file rather than the default format associated with your application)

• as an MS Word (DOC) file (not Corel WordPerfect [WPD])

• as a generic text, or "ASCII," (TXT) file, the type of file that your pre-installed MS Notepad application generates (disregard the text-formatting comments in the first bullet of the Elements to be Placed on the Web Page section above; it's not possible to format a text document)

Forward content, either as an e-mail attachment to webmaster@pacounseling.org

As part of his/her role as editor of the site, the PCA Webmaster will edit material as necessary to conserve server space, to avoid compromising our Web host, to ensure that it conforms to Internet etiquette, and, most importantly, to ensure that it is accurate and consistent with official PCA and American Counseling Association by-laws and policy.  Then he/she will up-load the submitted material to the appropriate sections of the site.

Responsibilities of the PCA Unit

• maintain a current page; the page should be reviewed and updated, and links should be checked for viability, both on at least a monthly basis

• maintain an accurate page; information on the page should agree with PCA/ACA by-laws, policies, and published data (the PCA Webmaster will assist you with this)

• ensure that permission has been obtained for the use of any copyrighted materials; while U.S. copyright law for the Web is not well-defined, a guideline which may be helpful is to include on a page only those images and text which you would be permitted to publish in a book or article

To assist association officials, the PCA Webmaster will maintain a Web page inventory--a listing of all PCA Web pages and the association units responsible for them--and disseminate it to them periodically (scroll down to the next section for the latest copy).

For more information about PCA Web style, for many helpful site-building resources, or simply for general questions, please contact the PCA Webmaster.