Our STC chapter has struggled for several years to consistently produce a newsletter for our members.
Editors come and go. When we do get a volunteer editor with a volunteer staff, a major effort is required to coordinate the activities: soliciting content, collecting it, editing it, soliciting ads, formatting the layout, proofreading the final version.
A lot of work. Funny thing is that during the gaps when we couldn’t produce a newsletter, there was no hue and cry from the chapter membership. That makes me wonder if the effort is worth it.
Some chapters have switched to a blog format in favor of a PDF version. The Austin Chapter has a nice one. And the Suncoast Chapter combined their Web site and newsletter into a blog.
Our chapter council is considering using a blog for the newsletter. Al Hood opened a discussion about this in his president’s blog.
I’m wondering whether we need a Web site AND a blog/newsletter. With the blog format, we can use tags to form the categories that already exist on our current site. So, for example, all the Currents information could be tagged “Currents Conference” and if you click there, they would appear. You also have the option on most blogs to set up static pages.
This would simplify our work greatly and make it easier to recruit volunteers.
Another benefit is more timely information.
Posted by hharkness 
