Preface. By Rich Zautcke

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1 Preface It is the intention of the author to help the editors of Councils and Assemblies in writing a good newsletter. It is in no way meant to take away from what you may already have, but if you would like to improve or gleam some new idea on improving your newsletter that would give great joy to this author and I m hoping that Newsletter Ideas and Tips does that for you. Making your Knights of Columbus Council/Assembly newsletter pop following the Order founding principles of charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism. Remembering Father Michael J. McGivney, message as a fraternal benefit society. The Knights were formed to render financial aid to members and their families. Mutual aid and assistance are offered to sick, disabled and needy members and their families. Social and intellectual fellowship is promoted among members and their families through educational, charitable, religious, social welfare, war relief and public relief works. If you don t know where to start, in getting your Council/Assembly actives out to your membership and to new or prospective new member, then start with doing a good newsletter. By Rich Zautcke

2 Newsletter Ideas and Tips Ten tips to make sure your Council/Assembly newsletter gets read, not tossed By:Rich Zautcke Through its design and content, a newsletter needs to capture the attention of potential readers and keep it. A newsletter won t get results if nobody reads it. The Newsletters help inform readers and get people interested in the organization. To be truly effective, a newsletter must be published regularly (whether monthly, or bimonthly); well designed, eye catching, and content-rich; and written to keep the audience s interest. Each of these elements regular publication, good design, and good writing contributes equally to the effectiveness of a newsletter. If you re thinking of creating a newsletter for your Council/ Assembly or if your existing newsletter needs to be revamped, here are 10 tips to make sure your newsletter gets read:

3 1. Make your newsletter s name an attention grabber Too often, editors decide to focus their newsletter title on their company s name rather than something that might draw in more readers. For instance, say the Grand Plaza Hotel creates a customer newsletter to attract more meeting and conference business. Most editors would choose a generic sounding name for the newsletter like: Grand Plaza Hotel News. This title might get the attention of readers who are already familiar with the Grand Plaza Hotel, but it ll be less likely to capture the attention of someone who has never heard of the hotel. A much better name that would appeal to a wider segment of readers, would be Meeting & Conference Success. This name would definitely pique the interest of the hotel s target market: meeting and conference planners. The same thinking works with your Council/Assembly. Be creative or maybe have a contest with your members. 2. Write your newsletter s articles objectively Although a newsletter can be an excellent vehicle for promoting your Council/Assembly benefits and services, it shouldn t read like a sales brochure. By its nature, a newsletter should be a soft sell and provide useful information to readers. A newsletter that s full of sales hype and propaganda will quickly be tossed by potential readers. A newsletter s stories should be written more objectively, like the articles you d find in a newspaper.

4 Does the article offer anything new for readers such as information, tips, advice, resources, or benefits? Give readers reasons to read and they will Base your articles on factual information and write them as if you were a neutral third party. Instead of writing a headline that screams. Also, when you insert opinions into your stories, make them into quotes and attribute them to the proper people in your Council/Assembly, just like a newspaper would. Keep all information accurate. Use the six questions to give your newsletter a versatility: who, what, when, where, why and how. The best articles incorporate all six of these questions and answers, if applicable. This may require some research such as interviewing, but it is worth it if you want to make an effective newsletter with your audience's opinions expressed. 3. Write to express, not to impress The purpose of a newsletter is to communicate, not to see how many times you can send readers scrambling to find a dictionary. Don t use big words when smaller words will do. Keep your writing casual, nontechnical and conversational. When you use acronyms (CCTV, AARP, etc.), don t assume readers know what they stand for. List them out in first reference, for instance, closed-circuit television (CCTV) and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). Writing should be straightforward Use simple language and active verbs. Avoid using jargons or expressing personal opinions, except in direct quotes.

5 4. Proofread, proofread, proofread You probably wouldn t dream of sending out a resume to prospective employers that looks unprofessional, is full of typos and contains grammatical errors. That s because your resume directly represents your professionalism to prospective employers. In that same way, a newsletter represents the professionalism of your Council/Assembly to prospective candidates. You ll want to make sure it looks impressive, has polished writing and is free of typos and grammatical errors. Proofreading, revising and rewriting are the most tedious, mundane parts of putting together a newsletter but they are absolutely necessary. After writing your articles, proofread for typos and then edit all articles for consistency of tone and voice. Never leave proofreading to your spell and grammar check tools. They are great for preliminary editing but poor substitutes for manual editing. Have someone else look over your newsletter for typos and clarity, since you can easily skip over them after staring at the text too long. And don't forget that you can't edit enough. Once you've thought you edited enough, go over it one more time. Even just a few typos will annoy readers enough for them to disregard you as a professional.

6 5. Use front-page articles to draw in readers It may be true that you can t judge a book by its cover. But prospective readers do judge a newsletter by its cover. If the front page doesn t contain interesting, useful articles, most people will glance at it, classify it as junk mail and throw it away without even reading one story. Kick it off with catchy headlines Catchy headlines will establish a professional style for your newsletter. Well-written headlines make the point of the article succinctly with strong, active verbs and short, simple words. A good headline gets the reader s attention, summarizes the article, and draws the reader into the article. The rules for good headline writing are similar to those for good copywriting: use active voice and present tense; short, punchy words; and strong verbs. Headline writing is a learned skill. You may need to study and practice to attain proficiency. Just like USA Today or the Wall St. Journal, your front page should feature the issue s best articles that will draw in readers. Studies have shown that most people do not read a long paragraphs and over 4 of them. Learn to get to the point at what you want to express and into a readable font like Time Roman or a Sans Serif fonts 12 or 14 point. Never mix fonts in a newsletter. Newsletter are short stories, 3 pages front and back if you like, and can be sent at regular postage. Remember, some members my not have a computer. Also, under or near any picture should have a caption explaining what going on in the picture unless it is part of a news article

7 and even then it is better to say what going on. (Depending on the picture their could be an exceptions to the rule.) And remember: articles that are important to your Council/ Assembly aren t necessarily important to the average consumer. To help hold the interest of your readers, consider organizing the contents of your newsletter into specific categories that repeat each time the newsletter is published. You may even want to keep some categories in the same location in each issue of the newsletter. Here is a list of possible categories: Navigator Report/Grand Knight Faithful Friar Report/Worthy Chaplain DD Report/Area Coordinator Report Service Story - Community Membership Activity of Assembly/Council (with pictures) Honor Guard Report Mission Statement Officers of Assembly/Council Editor: address, and phone number who to contract about the newsletter

8 6. Use at least one graphic per page Graphics include photos, artwork, charts, pull quotes or even a colored or shaded box behind an article. Graphics are important for two reasons. First of all, studies have shown that people are more likely to read an article if it contains a graphic such as a photo. That s because graphics, along with headlines, are the first things that readers eyes are drawn to when they turn to a new page. Secondly, graphics within a story are important because they provide much-needed visual breaks from solid blocks of text. A page containing nothing but row after row of endless text does not look inviting to read. However, a story that contains strategically placed graphics that break up the text into smaller, less-imposing portions looks more visually pleasing and will attract more readers. 7. Use image-editing software to sharpen your photos Few photos come from the developer with perfect contrast, color and brightness levels. If you scan photos for your newsletter, be sure to electronically touch them up before you insert them into the layout. Otherwise, they ll probably look muddy in the final product. Most image-editing software programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, allow you to adjust the contrast, color and brightness levels of a scanned photo.

9 8. Use accent colors and tints to make your newsletter more eye-catching This tip applies to those who are not printing their newsletters in full color, which can be quite expensive. To be certain, a black and white newsletter is better than no newsletter at all. However if your budget allows, add at least one accent color to your newsletter s design. This is called a twocolor or two-ink (black plus your accent color) newsletter, to use printshop jargon. Your newsletter will be competing with colorful magazines, newspapers and other high-budget publications for your readers time. A splash of color on your pages will make your newsletter much more visible to prospective readers. Also, by using tints of your newsletter s inks, you can print more colors for no extra cost. A tint is simply a lighter shade of one of your inks. For instance, if you have a newsletter that uses dark blue as its accent color, you could use your desktop-publishing program to color certain elements with a 50 percent tint of that ink, which would appear medium blue. A 25 percent tint of the dark-blue ink would appear light blue. The same applies for other colors. Using red as an accent color, you could print lighter shades that appear pink. Tints of black will appear as various shades of gray.

10 9. Give your printshop an electronic file to print from, not paper originals Instead of giving your printshop paper copies for originals, give your printshop your electronic computer file from your desktoppublishing program to print from. Quality print shops can print directly from electronic originals, and your print quality will be immensely better than using oldfashioned paper originals. This improved quality will translate into sharper photos and graphics, smoother tints and a crisper, more-detailed overall appearance. 10. Use recycled paper Keep the world s trees and your readers happy by printing your newsletter on recycled paper. Even if you aren t a tree-hugging granola eater, I bet many of your readers are. Unlike years past, there s very little cost difference today between recycled and virgin paper. So there really isn t any reason not to use recycled paper. An important note when choosing paper: Remember, recyclable paper is not necessarily recycled paper. Also, many papers are made from small amounts of mill scraps that are recycled, but this isn t truly recycled paper. Instead you ll want to use paper that is at least partially made up of previously used paper, like you put in your recycling bins. To find out what portion of the paper was made from previously used paper, ask your printshop for the paper s post-consumerfiber percentage. The higher the number, the more recycled paper was used. Commonly used recycled papers generally range between percent post consumer fiber.

11 If you do print your newsletter on recycled paper, be sure to let readers know. Put Printed on Recycled Paper in small type at the bottom of your pages or in the masthead. What do I need to know about copyright? Copyright the legal exclusive right of the author of a creative work to control the copying of that work most affects newsletter editors who want to reprint copyrighted articles that have previously been published. The only way to legally reprint is to get permission from the copyright holder (which may be the publication in which the article first appeared). Contrary to popular belief, giving credit to the original source of the article is not sufficient to avoid violating copyright you must also have permission. You can also establish a copyright to protect your publication. This doesn t require you to do anything as soon as the publication is printed, it is considered copyrighted to your group. It is no longer necessary to registered the publication with the U.S. Copyright Office or to use the copyright symbol to establish copyright protection. ( ) option g key = I hope these tips can help you become the best editor can be for your local Council or Assembly KC Newsletter. Vivat Jesus Rich Zautcke

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