THIS MONTH we are launching a new opportunity for members of the Northings Community to take a fuller part in the site.

WHILE our commissioned reviews and articles will remain the backbone of our coverage of the Arts in the Highlands & Islands, we want to provide our users with a chance to express their own views on events around the region.

WE can only hope to cover a representative sample of what is going on through our regular commissioned reviews. If you have ever felt frustrated after seeing something locally that we have not covered, or feel your local area is under-represented on the site (and we readily admit that is the case in many places), then now is your chance to help us plug that gap.

Roddy Woomble is among the headline acts at this month's Heb Celt Festival in Stornoway

Registered members of the community can now submit their own reviews of events. I should say straight away that we cannot offer payment for Northings Community Reviews (although if we like your work, there may be an opportunity to add you to our regular review team).

It does, however, give you a chance to exercise your writing skills and knowledge in a form that will be published and available on our well-used site, and to add to the scope of coverage of the arts in our large and diverse area. As we all know, much of what goes can all too readily escape the attention of the “mainstream” media – Northings offers an internationally accessible platform.

There are some rules. You have to be a registered member, and you have to be logged in to Northings to submit your work. Please use the simple format laid out in the submission page (you can write directly into the ‘Your review’ box, but will probably find it easier to cut and paste from your usual word processing software).

Some common-sense conditions and restrictions on what you can say apply:

• Northings reserves the right not to publish any contribution without further explanation
• Northings reserves the right to amend your copy within the normal constraints of editorial practice
• Northings Community Reviews should not exceed 300 words, and should be submitted as soon as possible after the event, but no more than five days at the latest (and we reserve the right not to publish reviews which are submitted too long after the event)
• Reviews must not contain abusive personal attacks on any individuals or organisations, or use language which the Editor deems unacceptable
• If you have any connection with the venue, performer or organisation running the event, it needn’t preclude you from writing about it in the Community Reviews section, but you must clearly state your connection at the end of the review

Our aims in setting up this new facility is to involve our members more closely in the content on the site, and to provide a complementary service to our commissioned reviews that will allow members to pick up something that we have missed and bring it to wider notice, or to present an alternative perspective on an event.

We hope that many of you out there will want to make use of the chance, and we look forward to seeing what you have to say.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

Kenny Mathieson

Editor