IMHO, some clubs (or editors) make a much bigger deal of the newsletter than
it needs to be.
Now it is very nice to have a newsletter with a color cover, packed with
photos and chatty articles and slick graphics, but first step back a pace
and figure out what a newsletter NEEDS to be.
Information.
What essential info does an autocross club need?
1. Schedule of upcoming events
2. Results of recently past events
3. Contact information for key people
If your newsletter does nothing else, THAT ought to go out on roughly a
monthly basis. And it does not take someone with a master's in journalism
and a bachelors in graphic arts to do it.
Having trouble finding someone to do it? Get someone with the mandate that
the above three points are all he is required to produce each month,
anything else is gravy. Yes, I'd add at minimum a fourth item -- an RE (club
president) message. Not essential, but really should be there.
My wife does our newsletter, with virtually no experience beyond doing
outsource work for a local copy shop doing folding and stapling. I help her
with filler stuff sometimes, but mostly she does it on her own. She uses
Word that came on the computer to put it together. My biggest contribution
is I go to the copy shop and run it off for her. Just ran one today. Six
pages. 135 copies. B.F.D.! She's folding it right now while talking on the
phone. She's also the membership chair, largely because it makes the mailing
list easy.
Newsletters are not rocket science. I see a lot of Regional newsletters.
Some are very "professional" with lots of good content, good artwork, fun to
read. Some are one-pagers that just let people know when and where this
month's event is and who won last month. If you're an SCCA Region I think
you'll find there is a requirement in the charter to do a regular
newsletter. The charter does not require it be a rival to Racer magazine.
And nobody has to lick stamps any more. Buy self-stick!
Forget what the last editor's newsletter looked like. Just do one that
covers the basics. Anybody complains, invite them to do it better (or help).
If an editor feels like going beyond the basics, that's up to him.
--Rocky Entriken (done several of them)
-----Original Message-----
From: Arthur Emerson <vreihen@hotmail.com>
To: autox@autox.team.net <autox@autox.team.net>
Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 8:28 AM
Subject: Newsletter outsourcing???
>Has any club/region ever tried to outsource their newsletter
>production??? If so, what did you outsource? Layout?
>Duplication? Mailing? Any recommendations for a vendor to
>outsource it to???
>
>Our local SCCA region has published exactly one newsletter
>in the past two years, because nobody will step up and
>volunteer to do everything from beg for articles through
>licking stamps. I'm thinking that the editor's job might
>be much easier to fill if the production/mailing process
>wasn't part of the responsibility. Just assemble the
>content and a mailing list, and hand it all to a professional
>to do the layout/printing/mailing.....
>
>-Arthur ("Ask me why my home region decals are upside-down" edition.)
>
>_________________________________________________________________
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