barebones
New member
Does anyone know of group e-mail addresses, web sites etc, where usefull information for use in a Yacht Club Newsletter is sent to you automatically once weekly.
Club Newsletters
- Thread starter barebones
- Start date
Jeremy_W
New member
What information would you want? I edited a club magazine for three and a bit years and can't think of a website that would help. Your basic problems running a club mag are, IMHO:
(1) Flag officers who can barely produce the required 250 words a quarter. A week late they push a scrap of paper into your hand leaving you to decipher their hand writing, correct their grammar and basically guess at what they meant.
SOLUTION - Nail them in the bar a week before deadline. "What do you want to write about"? 'To congratulate the Optimist youngsters on their great results at the Regionals and welcome Mike and Mary to the club. That delivery from Crinan to the Colne in a Centaur must have been an epic'. Go home and write it yourself, and push the first draft into their face. "That's great - just add a sentence to say how hard Fred has worked as Oppie coach". Honestly, they'll thank you for it.
Remind them that the dyslexic Paul Elvstrom - four Olympic Golds - wrote his autobiography "Elvstrom Speaks" in this way, leaving Richard Creagh-Osborne, his mate from Finn sailing, to edit down several hundred thousand words of rambling recollections into a structured book.
(2) Junior officers who produce 1,500 words when 250 were required and take umbrage when you edit them.
SOLUTION - calculate how much the mag would cost if everyone wrote six times as many words as requested and pointedly ask the Treasurer if the club can afford this. The more brutal you are up front the easier it is later.
(3) Selling the advertising space to make the mag basically self-financing. Once you've done this you get the Treasurer off your back and can start having some fun!
SOLUTION - If you can't do it, find a natural salesman. I didn't do this, which is my only big regret.
ENJOY!
(1) Flag officers who can barely produce the required 250 words a quarter. A week late they push a scrap of paper into your hand leaving you to decipher their hand writing, correct their grammar and basically guess at what they meant.
SOLUTION - Nail them in the bar a week before deadline. "What do you want to write about"? 'To congratulate the Optimist youngsters on their great results at the Regionals and welcome Mike and Mary to the club. That delivery from Crinan to the Colne in a Centaur must have been an epic'. Go home and write it yourself, and push the first draft into their face. "That's great - just add a sentence to say how hard Fred has worked as Oppie coach". Honestly, they'll thank you for it.
Remind them that the dyslexic Paul Elvstrom - four Olympic Golds - wrote his autobiography "Elvstrom Speaks" in this way, leaving Richard Creagh-Osborne, his mate from Finn sailing, to edit down several hundred thousand words of rambling recollections into a structured book.
(2) Junior officers who produce 1,500 words when 250 were required and take umbrage when you edit them.
SOLUTION - calculate how much the mag would cost if everyone wrote six times as many words as requested and pointedly ask the Treasurer if the club can afford this. The more brutal you are up front the easier it is later.
(3) Selling the advertising space to make the mag basically self-financing. Once you've done this you get the Treasurer off your back and can start having some fun!
SOLUTION - If you can't do it, find a natural salesman. I didn't do this, which is my only big regret.
ENJOY!
AndrewB
Well-known member
Excellent advice!
Exactly my experience.
Newsletter Editor is the Club Pariah. When he enters the bar all the Officers cringe away knowing he's going to start asking them for things. Ghost writing is definitely the way to go.
Ask members to write for you and and what you get is a 10 page dense screed on 'my charter holiday in Majorca', a day by day, blow by blow log-like account unpunctuated by illustration or indeed anything else that would conceivably interest anyone but the author. For some reason that was the only type of article people wanted to contribute. After a couple of desperate attempts to edit these down into something interesting, I used to simply drop the first paragraph, and take the next 800 words - which exactly filled the one page I'd asked for. Nearly came to blows on a couple of occasions - your Treasurer idea is great.
An occasional pint to one of the more approachable marina staff will quickly fill the 'news of members' section with items about who has dinged who - and if your informant is not a club member not even he will twig the source of your inside knowledge. The bar staff are also a good source, but unfortunately they learn to be discrete.
Always keep tabs on the local paper, you can usually pick up a few snippets. The Cruising Association website http://www.cruising.org.uk/ is a good source for for general news items if you need some padding. In theory there is a question of copyright but I can't imagine anyone getting too excited about a club newsletter.
Advertising (by local traders) is a pain. Some advertisers would keep me going for hours with particulars about layout, or demanding statistics on the expected return for their £10 outlay. I just used to tell them to regard it as a good-will gesture, and not to mind the details. No wonder I never got much.
The benefits? The Newsletter Editor will end up knowing more about the club and in particular its members than anyone else. I loved this side of it.
Exactly my experience.
Newsletter Editor is the Club Pariah. When he enters the bar all the Officers cringe away knowing he's going to start asking them for things. Ghost writing is definitely the way to go.
Ask members to write for you and and what you get is a 10 page dense screed on 'my charter holiday in Majorca', a day by day, blow by blow log-like account unpunctuated by illustration or indeed anything else that would conceivably interest anyone but the author. For some reason that was the only type of article people wanted to contribute. After a couple of desperate attempts to edit these down into something interesting, I used to simply drop the first paragraph, and take the next 800 words - which exactly filled the one page I'd asked for. Nearly came to blows on a couple of occasions - your Treasurer idea is great.
An occasional pint to one of the more approachable marina staff will quickly fill the 'news of members' section with items about who has dinged who - and if your informant is not a club member not even he will twig the source of your inside knowledge. The bar staff are also a good source, but unfortunately they learn to be discrete.
Always keep tabs on the local paper, you can usually pick up a few snippets. The Cruising Association website http://www.cruising.org.uk/ is a good source for for general news items if you need some padding. In theory there is a question of copyright but I can't imagine anyone getting too excited about a club newsletter.
Advertising (by local traders) is a pain. Some advertisers would keep me going for hours with particulars about layout, or demanding statistics on the expected return for their £10 outlay. I just used to tell them to regard it as a good-will gesture, and not to mind the details. No wonder I never got much.
The benefits? The Newsletter Editor will end up knowing more about the club and in particular its members than anyone else. I loved this side of it.
barebones
New member
I have been editor of our Y C Newsletter for a couple of years, I have now reformatted it as a monthly newsletter, one page double sided, which costs only 2p a side to photocopy at our local photocopying bureau and its collected and
returned for that. I find that a monthly format is much less onerous to produce, and also more newsworthy, instead of anecdotal as most Y C newsletters tend to be.
With reference to automatic newsworthy e-mails, there are a couple of
American sites which forward these. All I need to find is a few more,
then all I do to get some padding is lift what I fancy from the e-mail and post it into the newsletter, it's easy and simple. I have a strict deadline,
and if I get little copy from the membership, who I contact monthly by e-mail, I just fill the newsletter with all this stuff off the net and nobody knows the
difference, they all think I'm a very knowledgeable chap, punching away at
the keyboard for evermore, you may think this type of copy might get a bit monotonous to read, which it does, well to me anyway, but it doesn't matter, as you never get any thanks for grinding away at it, and you can be certain of not getting any constructive criticism (buit woe betide you if you make a spelling mistake) as everyone is petrified with being lumbered with this thankless task and anyway if someone else wants to do it, their welcome.
returned for that. I find that a monthly format is much less onerous to produce, and also more newsworthy, instead of anecdotal as most Y C newsletters tend to be.
With reference to automatic newsworthy e-mails, there are a couple of
American sites which forward these. All I need to find is a few more,
then all I do to get some padding is lift what I fancy from the e-mail and post it into the newsletter, it's easy and simple. I have a strict deadline,
and if I get little copy from the membership, who I contact monthly by e-mail, I just fill the newsletter with all this stuff off the net and nobody knows the
difference, they all think I'm a very knowledgeable chap, punching away at
the keyboard for evermore, you may think this type of copy might get a bit monotonous to read, which it does, well to me anyway, but it doesn't matter, as you never get any thanks for grinding away at it, and you can be certain of not getting any constructive criticism (buit woe betide you if you make a spelling mistake) as everyone is petrified with being lumbered with this thankless task and anyway if someone else wants to do it, their welcome.
chippie
New member
You could save your club a few bob on postage and copying by getting a list of members who are happy to receive the newsletter by email.