Procedure – modify as you see fit, but this works for me:

Email the board about ten days - two weeks before the deadline to remind them to send reports. Givea deadline, and make it "drop dead".

It is best to produce the newsletter in MS Word, since most of your proofers will have that. Publisher or other programs would be nicer, but you’ll lose your proofers. After the deadline, paste all reports received into one big Word file, separated by a few blank lines. At this point you can scan for consistency, and do some global search and replaces. For example, PBK NCA and PBKNCA changed to FBKNCA if you wish to use a Greek font, phone number format (search by area code), convert all to Times font, 10 point (usually), etc. This is a good time to proof-read as well. First reading is usually best.

There is not a “newsletter template”; it works best to remove the text from a previous newsletter of the appropriate month as a starting point. It is better to use the column feature of Word rather than textboxes, unless articles are continued on a non-adjacent page. The “In this Issue” section is best in a textbox. Article headings, event coupons, Board list, Asilomar coupons are outlined using Format | Borders & Shading | Box. (Note about columns. If the oumns won't align properly, select the text that you want to be two column, change it to one column and then back again to two - ah Microsoft)

Copy the text from the big Word file into newsletter one report at a time; it is sometimes necessary to edit down some reports to fit (editor’s prerogative!). Try to allow some “white space” in the newsletter – line between paragraphs and sections, use pictures to breakup the text. Event pictures, unless supplied by the Program VP, are usually found by a Google search for the event location. Convert these to B&W and reduce to approximate size in PrintShop or PhotoShop. Final size reduction can be done in Word.

The last page (address page) usually states “Return Service Requested”, and may have a comment on some item of importance in the newsletter. At Asilomar time, put the coupon here. Return address should be that of the membership vp.

After compiling the newsletter, send the Word doc to as many proofreaders as you can. Have the reviewers use the “Track Changes” feature of Word (Tell them to turn it on by double clicking the faint gray TRK at the very bottom of Word. Go through the changes, accepting or rejecting as desired. Using Word’s Tools | Compare and Merge Documents, merge the proofs into a new document. Use the track changes feature again to reconcile the various changes.

Create a PDF of the final copy and send to the printer. Normally, have about 5-10 extra copies printed. The printer takes about a week; mailing can take another week or two, depending in where it goes.

Printer

I, Ray Hendess, 2008, have used two printers depending on the quantity of newsletters. For anything over 1000 copies, All American Printing in Petaluma (707 7632 2500, Deni Gross <deni@allamericanprinting.com>) is best, but they are expensive for short runs. There I use Minutiae Men, Inc dba Point To Point in Sebastopol (707 573 1043, Patrick Temple <patrickt@ptp.biz>). Both work from emailed PDFs. Directory was done by AllAmerican.

These printers have the PBK postal information, for any other printer, the form is available. They use their own non-profit permit, no longer necessary to have our own post office account.

Generally, get 5-10 extra newsletters, and 50 extra Directories.

Recruiting new members

In the past, we have sent the November newsletter to all our members plus all on the national list (about 31, 000). This has gotten too expensive. In 2007 we sent the newsletter to just our members (cost $1,900 for 2300), and a #10 envelope with a single page letter and remit to the national list (cost $15,200 for 28,600 ). In 2008, we sent the newsletter to only our members ($2,100 for 2800) and an email to 5000 national members (those who had a good email address). The jury is still out on the effectiveness of the email (but it was free).

Directory

Once every three years, (2005, 2008, 2011, etc), you are responsible to produce the Directory of Members. This is best done around August when most people have (finally) joined. The alphabetical listing of members, lists by initiation name, school, and city are outputted from the Access membership database as PDFs. These are then combined with the first and last pages and other pages which are word docs. Convert all to PDFs, put into one PDF in the appropriate order if you have Adobe Professional) and send to the printer.

It is best to have the Membership VP send you the entire database, so you can proof the names. After proofing as below and creating the files for the Directory, send the proofed and corrected database back to the membership vp for their use. Open the PBKNCA table and scan over the Prefix, Fname, Init, Lname, Suffix, and Designation fields to be sure the following have been reconciled and are consistent: Mr. Mrs. Ms. Dr. Ph.D. M.D. Sr. Jr., etc. Run “PBKNCAFormUpdateFullNameFromParts” query or open the PBKNCA form to automatically update the full name (do not update the Full Name field manually; do all updates in the separate fields). Scan addresses and especially emails for typo errors. Run “PBKForm Chapter - Update Chapter Code Description” query to insure all chapters are consistent. Check phone number format for consistency. Run the directory reports from the “Mailing Lists and Reports” button, and look over the results, go back to the database, make corrections and run again, ad nauseam. Some members have requested not to be listed in the Directory – be sure this is honored. They are still sent directories, however. The directory is sent to all paid current year members. Errors are inevitable. Give an email and snail address in the directory, and publish corrections in the November newsletter.

Forms

Copies of currently used forms, letters and a current newsletter as Word docs and pdf’s are available on a private page of the web www.pbknca.org/PBKNCAForms. Note case is important to get to this page.

Email

We have just begun to use bulk emailing to the membership. Currently, the webmaster, me, takes care of this; but that can’t last forever. I am using PHPList, a public domain (free) emailing program. It is located on my website at http://rayhendess.com/pbkphplist/admin/. A password is needed and will be provided when I no longer do the mailing. Member signup is available at http://www.pbknca.org/email/, this address should be published in the newsletters. There are queries in the PBK database (Membership VP) for transferring emails from the membership database to the email database and back. Also queries for massaging a list received from national to allow sending emails to national members who are not members of NCA. In 2008, we sent 5000 mails offering a free copy of the November newsletter (which contains a remit envelope). Three hundred requests were received; they were added to the November mailing.

There is also a list of about 1200 (of 2500) NCA members who can be emailed to announce events not in the newsletter, or to make corrections.

I will create a separate documentation for the emailing.

Ray Hendess, November 30, 2008