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Question for you newsletter editors...

J

Jonathon.C

Joined
Sep 16, 2005
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Location
Camas, Washington
I'm the editor for my local turning club cascadewoodturners.com. The the thing is most newsletters for our club only average 4-5 pages, whereas some of the other club's newsletters that I've read have these 10-12 page newsletters with beautiful articles written by their members. We have a good ammount of members so my trouble isn't finding people to write articles, but actually getting them to write the articles. I enjoy reading newsletters with lots of interesting content, and I imagine that others might as well. So, my question for you guys is, how do you accumulate articles for your newsletters? Do you specifically ask certain people to write certain articles or do you rely on the members themselves to randomly come up with articles? Do you have special incentives to get the members to write for the newsletter? I personally think that our newsletter could be a lot more interesting if I could come up with more articles, but I just don't know how to encourage the members to participate. Any help would be appreciated!
 
Didn't get any replies so I thought I would bump this topic!
 
Getting articles for our newsletter usually involves begging. But we do get input or suggestions for others to write articles, as helpful as that is. We offer bonus points in a rewards program, but that doesn't help. I'm working on getting every demonstrator to provide notes on what they do so the editor has something to work with. Our editor is a great photographer and works hard to photograph demos and all items on the gallery. We add the gallery photos to the website too.
There is no magic formula, find a member who is great at tips and promote him to tipmaster or something like that. Flattery get more done than anything else.
 
Here is an idea, why not create a pool of articles that club editors can share and/or swap with each other?
 
That's a great idea that can be incorporated into the AAW website. It would be easy for editors to insert the text of the article into a message, etc. I may not have the mechanics right, but it certainly is a worthwhile project. Let's throw it against the wall and see what the moderators say.
 
that is a better question for Carl Voss, the journal guys. But why not simply poke around websites, find an article and ask the owner if you can use it in your newsletter along with a line thanksing that website (or author) for the article? There is a lot of content out there ripe for the picking.
 
I can attest to the fact that it is easier to push a rope than to get club members to come through on promised articles. The thing to do is to think of topics that you know that different members have expertise or experience in and buttonhole them. Do not just lay out blanket requests ... they don't work.
 
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