<CORSA Chapters> Fwd: Local Clubs and their communication

[Jim Pittman]

Hi Bob,

We are Chapter 871, CORVAIRS OF NEW MEXICO

>  Does your club produce a monthly newsletter?

Yes

>  If yes, do you mail it to all members, send it electronically, or some 
>  mix of both?

We print 90 copies - grayscale. We mail by USPS to most of our members
and to some 20-30 CORSA chapters or individuals as "exchange" newsletters.
The extra copies go to the officers and membership chairman to use as
recruiting tools at car shows and other events.

The full-color PDF version of the newsletter is posted on my web site
for two months. When it is there, usually the same day we mail out the
grayscale paper copies, I send e-mail to all our members who have an
e-mail address and to many CORSA chapters or individuals, telling them
that the current month's newsletter is available to download, and giving
the web address where they can find it.

I have no idea how many people download and look at the full-color
newsletter, or print it out and save it, but I think some do. I assume
some people save the grayscale newsletters, but I really don't know.

I have been reluctant to send the PDF of the newsletter via e-mail
because there is already far too much e-mail junk littering up the
internet as it is, and presumably only those people who want to see
our newsletter will actually download and read or print it.

>  If not, how often do you produce one or by what other means do you 
>  communicate with your members?

We occasionally resort to phoning local members to get out time-critical
information. Not often, though.

>  Do you have a club web site?

Yes: http://www.unm.edu/~jimp

There's also a "CORSA" site: http://www.corvair.org/chapters/chapter871
but its format and maintenance, in my opinion, are hit-or-miss, and it
is not listed by CORSA as our "official" chapter web site.

>  If yes, how often is it updated?  What sort of information do you post 
>  there?

I update my web site more or less daily. It contains all the important
stuff about our chapter:
	News items
	Calendar of upcoming events
	List of officers, present and past
	List of current members
	List of all known past members since 1974
	Statement of dues structure & history, local and CORSA
	History of the club
	A place to download newsletter PDFs, this month and last month
	A place to download text versions of newsletters, 1998 to present
	History of the newsletter, 1975 to present
	Index to newsletters, 1983 to present
	Application form to become a member
	Our Constitution
	WANTED and FOR SALE section
	History of our Club Awards
	Photos
	Technical articles, some stolen from other chapters
	Car-related stories
	Maps to meeting places
	Links to other interesting web pages including CORSA

We cannot afford to mail out full-color paper copies of our newsletter. The
grayscale version is much inferior to the full-color version, but is vastly
cheaper. Unfortunately we cannot go to internet PDF-only because many of our
members are still either uncomfortable with using the internet or actually
don't have internet/e-mail access. As the cost of postage and the cost of
printing go up, eventually something will have to change.

- Jim Pittman, Editor, ENCHANTED CORVAIRS newsletter



Begin forwarded message:

> From: Vairtec Corporation <Vairtec at optonline.net>
> Date: 2011=Nov=03 12:41:09 MDT
> To: Chapters CORSA <chapters at corvair.org>
> Subject: <CORSA Chapters> Local Clubs and their communication
> Dear CORSA Chapter representatives:
> Does your club produce a monthly newsletter?
> If yes, do you mail it to all members, send it electronically, or some 
> mix of both?
> If not, how often do you produce one or by what other means do you 
> communicate with your members?
> Do you have a club web site?
> If yes, how often is it updated?  What sort of information do you post 
> there?
> Kindly reply to me, but if you wish to share your reply with the whole 
> list go right ahead.
> I ask these questions because I am the newsletter editor/publisher in my 
> local chapter, and I am interested to learn what other clubs are doing.
> For the record, my club still produces a monthly newsletter.  We 
> distribute it via e-mail, exclusively, except that we have 
> "grandfathered" seven members who legitimately do not have e-mail 
> capability.
> The electronic newsletter is sent as a full-color PDF file; the handful 
> of printed copies are black & white laser printouts.
> My club has a web site which one of our members updates each month based 
> on the newsletter content.
> Thank you!
> Bob Marlow
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