Most Probus clubs produce monthly newsletters which they distribute to their members or also make available on their website. This is a wonderful way to promote the club’s activities!

Format

A popular method of creating newsletters is using Microsoft Publisher or Word. The documents are then saved in PDF and distributed as email attachments.

Unfortunately, PDF files are difficult to read on small devices such as iPhones. Yet, we often see more than 50% of our members using such small devices when accessing our websites. Clubs should therefore review if they could change to a method that is kinder to old eyes.

For example, the Probus Club of Cambridge distributes its newsletters in the body of bulk email messages. The formatting automatically adjusts for screen size using so-called responsive design. An example is shown in the Appendix. Tools like WildApricot or MailChimp can be used to create such responsive messages.

Privacy

It is important to respect the privacy of our members even if the newsletter is only distributed by email. Once sent, club management has no control over who gets ahold of a copy.

• Newsletters should only depict members with their consent. 
• It is advisable to never use full names. Good alternatives are short forms like Jane D.
• No personal email addresses should be included, unless express consent was given. It is easy to create free, generic email addresses such as membership_club_123@gmail.com.

Images

To make newsletters more appealing, editors sometimes download from the Internet and then insert photos, cartoons, and clipart (images). This is problematic, as several Probus clubs have found out. There is at least one Canadian company (PicRights.com) that claims to represent the copyright holders of certain images. They scan the public Internet - including PDF files - for unauthorized use and then demand stiff penalties (several hundreds of dollars per image) while threatening legal action. Newsletter editors need to ensure that any images they add are

• Original content produced and authorized by club members, or
• In the Public Domain, or
• Released under Creative Commons license with appropriate accreditation, or
• Licensed via purchase or other agreement, e.g. from istock.com or similar services

Mail Delivery

When newsletters are distributed to the membership using bulk email then there is a risk that email services consider this as spam. To minimize this risk:

• Make sure that your email service is properly configured. Companies like Google and Yahoo have recently increased their security requirements (article). This is a highly technical task so clubs using a custom domain may need help from their domain or email providers. This is not needed if sending from consumer domains like gmail.com or outlook.com.
• Ask your members 
  • to look for missing emails in their Spam folder
  • to add your sending address to their contact list
• Limit the number of images and hyperlinks
• Provide recipients a way to unsubscribe

Appendix

A newsletter which automatically adjusts to different screen sizes:

On a desktop computer	On an iPhone