Hi Cathie
I think you do a sterling job with the Newsletter and personally would not like to see its quality reduced.
I’m not sure what you mean by less formal – presumably no stiff cover? If this saves money then I’ll go along with that but Brenda has every newsletter from 1972 in the archive and the older ones (which were a simply cheap paper with no hard cover) are in a sorry state. No problem as soon as the stiff cover was introduced. I’m sure members who save their Newsletters may have a view on this also.
However, if funding is the driver there are other aspects you might consider. e.g.
http://www.sandhopper.org.uk/ another of Bill’s boats). It may be possible to set up a secure page if necessary.
2 – Find out who in the Association would be happy to obtain their flyers only off the web. These appear shortly after being received so members can see them without having to wait for their Newsletters.
3 – I suggest you limit the use of colour pictures if this is likely to increase the cost.
On the issue of prescribing to an e-mail service – you may be making a rod for your own back. You may remember that when I was on the committee I tried to set up an e-mail distribution list to notify members of events etc. I e-mailed everyone in the membership handbook (or tried to). Those that replied were in favour, but many didn’t reply.
a) Many of the emails bounced (possibly explaining why I received no reply)
b) People changed addresses that I was unaware of making it impossible to maintain an accurate list.
I suspect that even if you only set the distribution list to those who want to be included, you’ll have the problem of bouncing messages for various reasons which can be time consuming to sort out.
However , why use e-mail when we have a web site? If members are on the internet they will be able to read any announcements off the web (the primary reason I set up the Association Notices forum for the committee.)
Other ideas
a) Introduce some competitions
b) Encourage more members to contribute articles (difficult I know).
i. I’m not sure how many members know there is a Newsletter Prize for the best log submitted. Perhaps this needs highlighting frequently.
ii. We used to receive many useful modifications to boats of the Association and I think this should be encouraged (as I try to do with the maintenance page on the web site) Perhaps owners of the Seal craft were more inventive than those with Parker boats; or perhaps they are just happy with their boats – I don’t know. I’m sure many members don’t realise that the handbooks for the Seal 22/28 etc were put together by Geoff Harwood from the articles in Newsletters sent in by members. Why not a prize for the best modification submitted in the year also?
Regards
Don Harvey
Web Master