Club Newsletters

[Norf Tyrone]

Folks do any of you do a Club newsletter. I am looking to start putting one out for our club, and was looking advice on what kind of (cheap) software you use to put it together?

Any other advice welcome!

[LeoMc]

Texts or twitter the way to go. By the time you publish and distribute a newsletter half the info (especially fixtures) is out of date.

[Norf Tyrone]

Texts or twitter the way to go. By the time you publish and distribute a newsletter half the info (especially fixtures) is out of date.

We have a website, Facebook and texts. However there will be people who aren't up to speed yet on these.

It will be more for ocvering events in the future like functions, and reporting on news around the club etc. Fixtures and results will be a small part of it.

[DownFanatic]

I was going to restart our club newsletter but the more I thought about it the less I was convinced it would be of any use.

A good alternative is to take the back page of the Parish bulletin and use it as a weekly source to get across club news.

[ziggysego]

We upload ours onto the club website. Designed on MS Word.

[WeeDonns]

We have a monthly one.
You can find all past issues here;
http://www.drumraghgfc.net/2009/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=421&Itemid=124

It used to be quite a lengthy thing that was emailed out every couple of months. But in the summer, so much was going on in the club and we were missing things between issues, so we now make it a monthly thing, just 2 sides of an A4 page. Its emailed out, put on the website and printed off and distributed at underage training.

We just do it in MS Word and convert it to a .pdf when finished

[neilthemac]

are you going to host it, or send it by email?
or a combintion of both?

[Boycey]

We have a monthly one.
You can find all past issues here;
http://www.drumraghgfc.net/2009/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=421&Itemid=124

It used to be quite a lengthy thing that was emailed out every couple of months. But in the summer, so much was going on in the club and we were missing things between issues, so we now make it a monthly thing, just 2 sides of an A4 page. Its emailed out, put on the website and printed off and distributed at underage training.

We just do it in MS Word and convert it to a .pdf when finished

Sorry for taking the thread slightly off topic, do you run that site? I've being playing around with using joomla for our club website this while and that site looks pretty simple but effective none the less.

[WeeDonns]

Yes, I run it. Its been in its current form for 3/4 years.
I just customised this template (although didn't pay for it);
http://www.rockettheme.com/joomla-templates/colormatic

Joomla is great. I've about 7 others who can update the site etc which is great.
If you've any questions or need help getting it up and running, just shout

[Norf Tyrone]

We have a monthly one.
You can find all past issues here;
http://www.drumraghgfc.net/2009/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=421&Itemid=124

It used to be quite a lengthy thing that was emailed out every couple of months. But in the summer, so much was going on in the club and we were missing things between issues, so we now make it a monthly thing, just 2 sides of an A4 page. Its emailed out, put on the website and printed off and distributed at underage training.

We just do it in MS Word and convert it to a .pdf when finished

Shows you my ignorance. I didn't know you could convert from word to PDF! That looks fairly simple and effective WeeDons. Like it. Who does the graphics? I've an idea anyhow I think!

[WeeDonns]

I do them. Once you've the general template done, its just a matter of copying & pasting the stories into the text boxes.
I've acrobat professional installed on my machine, once you have it, it adds an 'Acrobat' tab to your menu in Word. So it's just a 1 click action to make it a .pdf

If you don't have acrobat pro, there's free software called Cute PDF. It installs on your machine as a virtual printer. So you just select print, and select the 'CutePDF' printer rather than your normal one, and it saves the pdf to your desktop

[Boycey]

Yes, I run it. Its been in its current form for 3/4 years.
I just customised this template (although didn't pay for it);
http://www.rockettheme.com/joomla-templates/colormatic

Joomla is great. I've about 7 others who can update the site etc which is great.
If you've any questions or need help getting it up and running, just shout

not illegal downloading I hope 

I might take you up on that.. I suppose I should really should just jump into it but all this talk of categories/sections etc is daunting me!! Our site is simple and relatively easy on the eye but is static and a pain in the hole for me to update, plus no one but me can do it... www.castleblayneyfaughs.com.

By the way the site you have for the run is really excellent

[Don Johnson]

http://mailchimp.com/?pid=GAW&source=website&gclid=CJ_22OXiuKoCFRRC4Qod_lsi5A

"Easy Email Newsletters
MailChimp helps you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, and track your results. It's like your own personal publishing platform. "

[inexile]

We are a small rural club but what works for us is a combination of the club website, our facebook page, texts from the GAA management system and notes in the Parish newsletter. This tends to cover everybody we want to contact

[Norf Tyrone]

We are a small rural club but what works for us is a combination of the club website, our facebook page, texts from the GAA management system and notes in the Parish newsletter. This tends to cover everybody we want to contact

We'd be a similar demographic inexile and again we do most of what you have above. However I rarely bother withe parish bullettin as it has to be in on the Monday for the following Sunday so so much can change. Not sure if attendances at mass would catch that many either!

In addition the newsletter means you can add photos and features etc.