Newsletter Poll

[Vance]

We are struggling with the cost, content and production of the monthly newsletter.
The cost of printing and mailing continues to rise. In addition, it seems that pertinent content is hard to gather on a monthly basis. Finally the time required to manage the list and fold and process for mailing is a formidable task. With these things in mind we are considering some changes to the newsletter program. Please respond to the poll above and indicate your preference. The results of this poll are not absolute but rather we need your input as we work through this situation. Thanks for your participation!

[Jake]

electronic if fine with me

[Raceydog]

Electronic is awesome. You can take me off the mail list now if you like.

[delta61]

Newsletter

Send ours electronically

[Gator]

I voted for electronic delivery of the newsletter but carrier pidgeon would have been a nice option

[Gail]

Well, I guess I'm the only one so far who doesn't want my newsletter sent electronically. I enjoy sitting down in my recliner and enjoying the read. I don't sit in front of my computer all day staring like a zombie at the screen. Some days I don't even turn the thing on. I also enjoy the anticipation of receiving it in the snail mail. Just one of lifes simple pleasures, I guess. I believe there are others who still want theirs delivered the old fashioned way, whether you hear from them or not. I hate change for the most part, and our club has and is changing . Now, I am going to crawl back in my hole. Gail

[rockosmith]

If we do go to electronic delivery, it would be nice to send out an e-mail alert to let us know it is available...kind of like a bill notification. Unless, of course, the intent is to e-mail the newsletter.
Dave

[BamaBiker]

Gail's not the only one who prefers a paper copy. If the Alabeemer goes strictly electronic, Susan (my wife) would never read it. She doesn't frequent forums. She does read the Alabeemer, often reading it cover to cover before she lets me know it's arrived in the house.

[Bikebum]

Will we lose any members if we go electronic? Any thoughts?

It seems to me that anyone wanting a paper copy could perhaps print one, in color no less.

[R90srider]

Gail definitely isn’t the only one who prefers to have our newsletter delivered by snail mail. One of my great pleasures is to find my newsletter in the mailbox and then going directly to my most comfortable chair to read it from cover to cover. That said, I understand the difficulty for our club’s treasury and the time consuming effort for our newsletter editor to stamp, fold and deliver over 400 newsletters to the post office.

How about another option? What is the possibility of having the printing company fold, stamp and mail the newsletters in addition to printing them. Our annual dues could be increased to cover part or all the expense.

[jdubeemer]

I think that's a great idea Bob. I'm also sure that there are some that don't have internet access and are not even aware of this thread.

[BamaBiker]

I've offered a proposal to Vance that could save the club money and would still offer a hard-copy to our membership. In a nutshell, Susan and I have offered to take over the distribution (addressing & mailing) of the newsletters if a few changes can be implemented into the preparation/printing phases of newsletter production. We'd have made this offer earlier, when Jamie & Malvene were doing the newsletter, but at that time we weren't sure we were going to stay in the club (Remember the FOB discussion?)

Now that we're firmly in the club, we're ready to take another step forward.

I've sent Vance some talking points for discussion at the NC meeting this weekend. Unfortunately, as long as I own my own business, I don't have the luxury of attending too many of the formal Alabeemer functions, and this is another meeting we'll be missing.

And Jamie, another club I belong to did go total electronic for their newsletter 2 years ago. Approximately 25% of the membership did not renew after that switch was made. Perhaps it wouldn't be that high a rate of non-renewals for the Alabeemers.

Jim, based on the number of responses to the polls, I'm betting that a large portion of the club that does have internet access hasn't taken the time this week to read the forum and make their preferences known.

[Vance]

Thanks for the comments everyone and some good ideas have been expressed here. Again Jack, I appreciate your offer to help and we will discuss that with you after we answer a couple questions. Also Bob I have spoken with the folks that print the newsletter for us this week about the option of having them print, fold, address and mail them for us as they do offer that service. Obviously that cost varies with how many they are processing for us.

As I stated in the beginning the idea of the poll was to get the discussion going pro and con and it was not intended to be a decision maker. As Jim points out I realized that those that don't frequent the forums would not likely even see the poll and therefore we would be "preaching to the choir" on the whole electronic thing. But it does give us a feel for the preference of those answering the poll...

Where I think we are headed, in the short term anyway is that we would create an "Opt In" list for the printed version and send the rest electronically. That would I believe cut drastically the number of newsletters to be printed, processed and mailed positively affecting cost and time to process the mailed ones.

Remeber the points I made above were the time it is taking to actually process the printed pieces. I am told that really the whole process requires several days the way we are doing at this point.

The other issue is the content. That is we need to either up the content or reduce the number of pages we are printing. That would do a couple things...less pages...less to fill...less to print. Currently we are at 12 pages. If we change that down it goes to 8 pages. Not really a problem but not something you would want to change from month to month. However, the electronic copies would be the number of pages they are each month since you are not laying out for printing.

I suspect that those who have not been involved with the production and mailing of something like this are not aware of all the issues involved with it. I too agree it is nice to receive the newsletter in the mail and I am always anxious to open it and read. However there are a lot of requirements behind the scenes to make that happen.

Let me say now, I am grateful to all those that have agreed to perform this job now and in the past. It is not easy with all the other demands on all of our time.

My hope is that we reduce any burden that is being carried now by the those volunteering and on the club treasury while maintaining the fun and excitement of the newsletter.

Frankly I think that can be achieved by a mix of mailed and electronically delivered newsletters.

I look forward to the discussion at our upcoming meeting...

[jdubeemer]

I have always been under the assumption that the only reason we paid dues was to cover the cost of the newsletter and membership book. If you eliminate the newsletter does that mean we wont have to pay dues to belong to the club? I joined the MOA back in 97 because I found a MOA owners news in the Airport FBO in Augusta and I wanted to get the magazine. If it wasn't for that, I would not be an MOA member to this day. The cost of MOA membership has risen to cover the cost. If the cost of the newsletter has risen then raise the dues to cover the cost. It still will be less than a tank of gas in my LT to get us to Cruso for the meeting. Or where is the meeting this month, let me go find my newsletter and check.

[rockosmith]

Well said, Jim