[Nfb-editors] Making the Newsletter work

[Wunder, Gary]

I think an affiliate newsletter can be extremely valuable for a number of reasons. The Internet with its e-mail lists and blogs is likely to beat any print publication we can generate in terms of reporting the news, but it will not often contain the kind of reflection one will find in an article drafted for a newsletter. In the Braille Monitor I did not try to tell people that the blind driver challenge took place, or even that it was successful. If they are the least bit interested in us, they know this already if they are our own members. I tried to give them history, a sense of what it was like for one individual to be there with hundreds of others, and some thoughts about the broader implications of the work. I also tried to write it so that those who aren't members can get a feel for what we are trying to do and why.

I think that the newsletter also can chronicle the history of our affiliates in a way that e-mail and blogs just want allow. The e-mail I received today or this week is very important to me, but whether it will be around in another 10 years is a different matter. I suppose I have a mechanism in place to archive it, but my experience is, that as machines and software change, some of the information we so prize today quickly becomes out of date. My machine cannot play a 5.25" floppy disk. Neither can it play the harder, smaller 3 1/2 inch disks. For a while I thought we had found a miracle device when a zip disk that would hold 100 MB of information came out. I don't have a zip disk player anymore either. Of course, I have used Word Star, Peach Text, Word Perfect, and now Microsoft Word, but it doesn't read some of the older stuff, especially if it was generated using the operating system CPM.

I think the state newsletter gives members the opportunity to shine. Many folks I know won't submit their first article to the Braille Monitor. They may, however, submitted to the Blind Missourian, and if that article happens to get picked up by the Braille Monitor, their confidence will be immeasurably enhanced.

I think we dare not under estimate how often our members look to us to show them we are doing something and that it is worth being a member. I had an active committee chairman here tell me he almost switched organizations because he didn't think we were doing anything. We talked and he soon realized that a number of us are busting our chops to make things happen. He apologized and promised to stay involved, but the message is clear: work like a dog and just assume folks know it, and they won't. The newsletter gives them a reason to be active because they see activity all around them. There's nothing better than an affiliate newsletter to chronicle the legislation we are introducing, following, or supporting. People like to see their name in print. Some will read the newsletter if only to see that someone took notice of them when they attended the Christmas party. For me the question isn't whether or not a newsletter is still valuable, but whether we will take the time to write it. We who enjoy the benefits of the computer, the Internet, and all of the different variations it brings to communication tend to forget how left out people are who regard computers as Confusers, the folks who don't feel at all at home with modems and DSL and cable. They depend on braille, print, and cassette, and to the extent that we don't provide these things, we are leaving them out. We are wrestling right now with how to move away from cassettes and still give people something they feel comfortable using. 

One last thought: We can do a far better job reaching out to those who don't know us. How many of you send your newsletter to members of your state's legislature? Does the mayor know how active the NFB is in his town in the same way the folks of St. Cloud did thanks to Andy Birden? They can if we send it. Does your family get your newsletter so when you ask for a donation they know what we do? Do you use your newsletter to further the relationship you made with the guy on the plane who was amazed at what you do and was interested in that organization you spoke so fondly about?

Just some thoughts to suggest that starting and maintaining a newsletter is worthwhile. So is reading the Braille Monitor, and please help me get people subscribed. I talked the other day with a Federation leader who said she had heard we were no longer taking individual subscriptions. I am not sure what that means except to say that, believing what she had heard, she didn't try to subscribe.

Gary