GMO Newsletters

[SillyHorse]

Our GMO has published a newsletter for decades. A few years ago, we cut back from a monthly mailed newsletter (also online) to four mailed issues a year, along with 12 monthly online. Recently, however, we’ve been thinking about whether we need a newsletter at all. It’s hard to get people to write articles, and our website has all the information about shows and clinics, plus all the ads from our generous advertisers. It’s a lot of work for our newsletter editor, and she’s wants to step down.

So I’ve been tasked with getting some information:

Does your GMOs have a newsletter?

If so, how often is it published? Is it mailed, online, or both? Do you think it’s valuable enough that you’d miss it if you didn’t get it?

TIA for your input!

[Bogey2]

I have not read the newsletters in years, but I know there are still people out there who prefer a printed one to the electronic one. Ours is monthly.
You should poll your members.
It is a lot of work, I was the editor of ours for years.

[SillyHorse]

Thanks for your reply.

I’m sure you know how it goes with polling the members: Do you want a newsletter/year-end banquet/big-name clinic? Yes! Yes! Yes! We need someone to be newsletter editor/banquet organizer/clinic organizer. Who will help? crickets

[Equibrit]

It is my experience that people cannot be arsed to read newsletters of any kind. This opinion is based on the questions they ask in membership meetings. They are, however, a record of your club’s goings on.

[Highflyer1]

I’m in two GMOs-- one doesn’t have a regular newsletter and one has a monthly email only version and offers scholarships and volunteer hours for year end awards in exchange for writing articles (which usually are clinic summaries.) I do like getting it and usually at least skim it. Even if you don’t have real articles I think sending out a list of activity dates along with a bullet point summary of meeting notes and any major news (club fundraiser, member obituary etc.) each month is a good idea. The GMO I am in that doesn’t do a newsletter changed their submission date for year end awards for this year, for example (something I noticed by accident when I was looking for other info on their webpage.) Stuff like that should definitely be sent out in writing.

[xQHDQ]

As the newsletter editor for my GMO I can attest to how difficult it is to get articles. We used to be print but now we’re online only, which has helped considerably because we don’t have as tight a deadline in getting material. I am very thankful that I have one contributor who sends me a substantive article just about every month. I, myself, write three short articles for each issue, and we have the President’s message. Last year we partnered with another local GMO to share content and that’s worked quite well. If we give you a grant, you’re asked to write an article about what you used the grant for - those are always fun. We used to have show results, then eliminated them because shows weren’t sending them to us in time and they’re usually available elsewhere, but we got complaints, so put them back. We include a business card ad of our business members, which I think is a big plus to both those businesses and people looking for services. I try to put in all announcements that impact our members but I often don’t receive them in time to include in that month’s issue, and since we use Constant Contacts to send out alerts on a continual basis, by the next month it’s old news.
We talked about not formatting it like a newsletter and instead just having it as a big email. We discussed not having it every month. However, we feel that this is what part of our member dues are paying for, and it also is a good advertising for our GMO.
A few people have let me know they like the newsletter or a particular article but feedback is few and far between. I think we did a survey a while back but got very few responses.