There is an easier way to create club bulletins!

 
It is so easy it has transformed Club Bulletins.
 
One of the difficulties clubs face every year is the weekly Club Bulletin. Firstly, someone needs to gather all the information each week and then have the skills to enter the reports, speakers, duties and upcoming events into the Bulletin itself.  The more creative the Bulletin the greater the need for technical knowledge … and once done it needs to be sent out meaning another skill set to manage the email system.  THERE IS AN EASIER WAY.
 
Using the Club Runner bulletin feature, assuming your Club has Club Runner,  the whole creation is much easier but people need to be aware that much of the input is around the use of the Stories feature and that also places these, if wanted, on to the Club website so these need to be done properly as the Club website is the main showcase medium for most Clubs and good, presentable publicity is crucial for the success of any Club.
 
The general process might by like this:
 
  • Create the main bulletin template – there are several available with many add it options to personalise for the club but done right, done once it will serve long-term
  • Information is gathered - with people managing their areas of responsibility the traditional workload for the Bulletin Editor is vastly reduced, see ...
  • Speaker organiser makes certain speaker list is up to date as this is automatically loaded to the Bulletin
  • Meeting duties organiser makes certain duties list is up to date as this is automatically loaded to the Bulletin
  • Events (projects, events, socials etc) may be loaded by a variety of people, often those running the Event and these automatically load to the Bulletin - note you can only enter 100 Events in a Rotary year so don't waste on minor things
  • Likewise a variety of people may be able to create and publish Stories to the website but the bulletin editor selects which is used in any one bulletin
  • Bulletin Editor write additional Stories (ie. Information) not created elsewhere
  • Some Clubs may have the President writing their own submission either using the specific Bulletin inset feature or via Stories
  • Once ready, the Bulletin is emailed to members and others as per communications feature
 
As you see, Stories are central to the Bulletin so some rules for this:
 
  • It might be easier to write the article (text) in Word and copy across into the Story feature
  • Do not select a font or font size as the website will use the same as is standard for the website
  • Do not use the thumbnail feature for pictures, instead …
  • Use a template that allows for a picture - looks neater having pictures all on the same side but that is a personal preference
  • Do not use the blue title within the text body – you already have a title for the Story when creating it
  • Every article to have a picture and keep same width (the writer has these at 200px) – if you do not have a picture then find one (eg.  for ERKs, copy the one from their website for example or use a snipping tool if a PDF )
  • Embedding videos is very easy also
  • Make sure all web links are live (can be clicked on)
  • Make sure text is only the depth of the picture … all overflow beyond that to go to the “Read more …”
  • Make sure text is a good read relevant to your club with no spelling or grammar errors and make use of gap lines
  • Keep gap line at the end of the article to no more than ONE line, whether the main displayed text or the “Read more …” text
  • This article is an example of the Stories feature (widget) in action
 
TIP:  A easy to use freeware for resizing and cropping pictures is Photofiltre  - ideal for cropping pictures of excess background to make pictures more interesting