If your local masters club or LMSC issues a newsletter, how do they publish it?
1. Printed on paper & conventionally mailed only.
2. Via the internet or email only.
3. Both internet/email and printed on paper & conventionally mailed.
Former Member
I think this forum does have different features and it lets us express ourselves-no matter how others think.
Hi Ken, very good topic. Here in the Michigan LMSC we put out 4 Newsletters a year to as many as 800 members. We have been doing this for many years. Our LMSC has been distributing via bulk mail as a non profit business which also entitles us to non profit postage rates which results in signifgicant savings than regular mail and regular business rates of postage. The "Wave Eater" Newsletter as it is called in Michigan is are main source of communication and we have all our meet flyers, meet results, news, and stories about masters swimmers in each issue. We are finding it very expensive to do and very time consuming for our Newsletter Editor.
We are in the process of doing a survey with our 2004 registration form with the exact questions that you are asking. In the next month we will be doing an e-mail distribution for the 2004 registration year renewal to our membership and with the answers we receive we will take action in 2004. One of the suggestions that has come up in our meetings is that if the majority of the members want the newsletter online or e-mail only then we would charge a fee for a printed paper copy that is conventionally mailed. It will be interesting to see how people feel about this. Frank Thompson - Michigan Masters Chairman
Ken,
In Virginia, the LMSC newsletter goes out 4 times a year. The VMST team newsletter goes out the other 8 months. I edit both so they follow the same format, the LMSC issue includes info from other clubs, if I can get any. It is mailed only at this time and runs about $.85 per copy. The printer mails it bulk with bar coding from Richmond. I get mine in Va Bch within a week. Meet directors are good about getting entries and results to me in a timely manner.
I think what Cindy mentioned about Colorado is the best way. I hope to offer ours by email on request. I strongly oppose email only. I find it difficult to read newsletter that way - maybe it's the trifocals. Also, sometimes we don't realize how many people use computers for email only with no attachments, or how many don't use computers at all.
Betsy Durrant
Betsy is correct - sending a newsletter formatted for print as an email attachment can be very difficult to read and to receive.
If clubs opt for email-only news, consider using a text-only email with no attachements to make it easy to read, quick (small size) to send, and with no chance of being "caught" by virus protection software.
Also, if email-only news is sent, the content is different from a printed newsletter. For example, with email news, you remind people the day before a meet entry is due, give links to meet entry forms, alert them to a last-minute workout cancellation, etc. (ie. more "newspaper")
A printed newsletter would contain less time-sentitive information, and be more appropriate for classified ads, and stories which are fresh and newsworthy at anytime. (ie. more"magazine".)
I suspect the older a person is, the more they tend to prefer a printed copy? (Oh boy, I hope I didn't open a can of worms - I mean it's what people are comfortable with and are used to.) Is that why our team seems to be attracting so many younger swimmers these days?
There wasn't really a choice for what we do in Kentucky. We print and snail mail our newsletter, but we also publish it online. However, we don't give people a choice about whether to receive it online or through the mail. Everyone gets it through the mail, and they can also look up old issues online.
Should we go more toward online distribution and save the postage? Probably!
Perusing the various LMSC and local club web sites I’ve noticed that most clubs that publish on-line, do so by PDF file, including this web site. To those unfamiliar with PDF files, it is a software from www.adobe.com which creates a facsimile of the actual document. I would wager that over 70% of the computers purchased in the last 4 years includes this software, however if you don’t have it, you can download it free from Adobe. What it allows the user to do is view or print! (On there own printer) a virtual exact duplicate of what the newsletter editor intended. So even though the newsletter is not mailed by the US postal service, anyone can print a duplicate of the newsletter on any brand computer printer and read it the old fashion way. Another handy dandy feature of PDF files is the enlargement feature, for those who have a hard time reading the fine print it can magnified about as large as your want too. Finally web publishing allows for color photos and multicolor layouts. I don’t think the average masters club is going to fork out the dollars for 4-color printing. I’ve included an excellent example from Pacific Masters.
www.pacificmasters.org/.../03sepoct.pdf
Our club is strictly email & web site. We decided that by the time a printed newsletter was put together, copied, and sent out, information was no longer news. We find for our club that email and web site information is always current, easy to quickly update, and less costly than mailing a printed newsletter.
However, we are not eligible for any USMS newsletter awards. :(
We decided that entering the 21st century and being current with information to the club was more important
Southern Pacific, like Pacific, publishes their LMSC newsletter as an insert in SWIM Magazine, 6 times per year. It is also available online as a pdf file, which is useful for those out of the area who often come to our meets.
Julie
Hi, Ken!
Thought I pop in and reply how we do it in Colorado. We used to send it snail mail exclusively...then a couple of years ago we published is exclusively on the website. The feedback we got from that was tremendous AGAINST website/email only. Last year we made it an option to 'opt out' of snail mail newsletters and view on the web when you register. About 100 or so of the 1800 here in Colorado chose to view only via web. In fact, many who are self-described computer geeks have commented to me that the enjoy getting it snail mail. Many of our members do not have access to the internet or choose not to use the internet and have snail mailed me letters or called me requesting that we continue to provide it snail mail. We (our LMSC board) all decided that we would serve our membership and snail mail to all but those who specifically request website only. --Cindy, Colorado LMSC President and Newsletter Editor
