This is probably the last new thing for a while...

Starting Monday morning, 17th August, our weekly email will begin.

This Week on BLUF is available in English, French and German; you can select your language, or turn the email on and off via the member preferences page (link from the members' home page, or 'preferences' at the bottom of every page in the members' only area.

You'll see which members are travelling to which cities over the next week, new members, plus the events coming up in the next 8 days, and a list of members who have updated their profiles in the last week.

I hope people enjoy it - it should help you know when other members are in your area, and remind you about events. Feedback welcome.

Well, the first one has gone out today, so if you received it (we still have problems delivering mail to AOL.com), I'd be interested in feedback.

In particular, there's a long list of people who've updated profiles at the bottom; is it too long? Should we just include certain updates and not others?

Would anyone actually prefer an HTML email with clickable links throughout?

If you didn't receive a This week... mail it means either a) you've opted out on the member preferences screen or b) you've never visited the member preferences screen at all, and you'll need to do that sometime, so that BLUF can keep in touch with you.

Nigel.

I found the e-mail very useful - it's length and detail was no problem to me but I guess typing in all the info might be daunting - and I found info like Backstreet's next event very useful. Even though health restricts me from visiting venues at this time - hopefully in the future I will be able to travel once again - it is nice to keep up with notices so as to know what is happening in the capital, eg Backstreet, Hoist.

The beauty of it is that nothing has to be typed in at all - it's all information that we have already, especially since the introduction of the new calendar system. So it's just a matter of programming the site to extract it and turn it into an email. That will happen automatically now at 5 past 8, UK time, every Monday morning.

Some other people felt the list of who's updated their profile was a bit long, so I've compromised, and on next week's emailing, it will list only those who have had new photos added or updated their profile text. That cuts the list down by about half; this week's email included changes to web sites, nicknames, email addresses and travel - the last of which is probably safe to admit, since you'll see people travelling week by week at the top of the email.

Glad you liked it. I hope it will encourage more people to get out to events, and perhaps meet up with those visiting their cities.

A small addition (and a tweak).

Now, on the member preferences page, and also on the main members' home page (where it appears just above the list of recent updates), there are links that will open a pop up window showing you the most recent edition of This Week on BLUF, so you can see what it looks like before deciding to opt in or out.

The tweak is a change in the travel plans, so it only looks six days ahead for arrivals, not 7. That means, for example, that people who arrive in Berlin next Monday were being show in this week's email, as well as in next week's, which is probably not really necessary, and doesn't really count as 'this week.'