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Creating a Dynamic Newsletter Association of UU Administrators |
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Creating a Dynamic Newsletter Association of UU Administrators |
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The workshop was presented by Jean Griffiths, Administrative Manager of UU Church of Tucson, AZ. Jean has more than twenty years experience in newsletter writing and production in three different denominations: the American Baptist Church, Presbyterian Church, and now a UU church.
A church's newsletter is a public relation device besides being a communication device. How it looks is important to not only the church members and friends, but to the outside community, visitors, and hence, potential future members.
Research has shown that readers like to read publications that are written with short words, short sentences and short paragraphs. They also like the feel and the look of the paper in a convenient size. Other things that enhance a newsletter are bulleted lists, attractive graphics, clear concise language, good organization, easy-to-read headlines, and last but not least, consistency in format.
What most readers don't enjoy are impersonal, irrelevant fillers, inaccurate information, hard-to-read type faces, clutters, bad grammar, and typos.
Consistency in design and format helps build image. Readers want to see the same familiar nameplate, issue after issue. They want to be able to find the masthead on the same page, at the same location, issue after issue, in order to have on their fingertips all of the relevant information about that particular publication - editor's name, phones and addresses of contact people, time of services, deadlines, and office hours for staff. They can depend on the minister's column on page 2 every issue, for example, and the president's column on page 3.
The length of the newsletter is an important consideration. It needs to be short enough that someone sitting down can finish it at one sitting without being interrupted. If it's too long, a reader is likely to be interrupted and the newsletter is likely to remain unread.
The handout; gives lots of good advice, tips and guidelines on such issues as type of fonts, margins, white spaces, type of papers, graphic enhancement and devices, clip arts, photography, and some common mistakes to avoid. It also includes a list of resources and a two-page evaluation.
Some churches are beginning to publish their newsletters online or sending them out in digital forms to a subset of their readers. Guideline for posting newsletters online can be found online. Another online resource for church newsletter editors is the UUA-sponsored email list uu-editors. Please visit http://www.uua.org/lists to sign up. Newsletter editors may be interested in UU clip art and a set of free-downloadable chalice fonts (for both PC and Mac).Reported for the Web by Kok Heong McNaughton
General Assembly 2001 · Program Grid
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