Created 2/18/2022 by BWM
Publishing E-News
E-News is ASURA's electronic newsletter.
E-News process
The material published in E-News is material that is time sensitive, for example:
- Board meeting material
- requests for research volunteers
- sudden changes to policies impacting retirees
- upcoming events
- surveys for use by the Governmental liaisons in supporting / opposing legislative bills
- voting in Board elections
This information is gathered by the editor during the month preceding the next issue. It is important to attend the Board meetings since Board meeting items are generally the primary source of information. But there are other sources:
- suggestions / requests by members
- ASU news stories
- direct request from a research lab that has used ASURA volunteers in the past
While E-News gives members time sensitive information, it is not intended to be a sterile presentation. It is important that E-News come across as a personal note from the editor to the reader and it needs to reflect the personality of the editor. Each E-News editor has his/her own style to personalized the newsletter.
The general organization is:
- An introductory paragraph to help set the tone of the newsletter and perhaps an overview of what's to come
- The introduction is followed by the various stories with the items from the recent Board meeting generally given first.
- The final item is the calendar of upcoming events
While you could go directly to publishing and compose the newsletter in Wild Apricot, it is good idea to prepare a draft version. It is generally easier to edit a Word document than a Wild Apricot page, e.g., moving blocks of text.
There are generally no graphics but if there are now is the time to round them up.
Once the draft version had been proofed and ready to go, publishing is done as follows:
- (optional) If you find it easier to add the bullets or numbers within Wild Apricot rather than pasting them in from your draft, save the formatted version, remove the bullets and numbers from your draft and save as an unformatted draft.
- Log onto Wild Apricot, switch to Amin view and follow the four step process for creating an email blast
- In Step 1 select the ASURA E-News template
- In Step 2
- Type over the Month and Year to enter the correct values. If you wish you may add the day
- Delete all the text below the Red banner and click on "Clear formatting (which may be in the "More" pulldown menu).
- Paste in your draft. If you pasted in the unformatted version you will need to add back in the bullets and numbers.
- If you are using headings for the various parts of the newsletter you may want to adjust the size by selecting the correct heading type (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
- Be sure to check all the links in the sample email as well as all the formatting. Wild Apricot has a tendency to change font sizes for randomly selected portions of the newsletter. You may also see extra space between paragraphs that you will want to remove.
- If you want to add a graphic you will need to add an "image" gadget.
- Be sure to follow all the parts in Step 3. The desired distribution list you want is named "ASURA News".
- Complete Step 4 to send the newsletter out to the members.
- The last step involves posting the edition to the ASURA website. You will need editing privileges for the website and if you do not have these contact the Technology Manager to either get privileges or find out who to contact to get the posting done. If you do have privileges then follow the instructions to "Add-edit an E-News issue".