Philosophy of newsletters (was RE:NMS)

[Nan Bradford-Reid]

>Aodhan writes:
>>The monthly newsletter should not be a venue for best artwork (little of
>>which, even among the cover art, is of period style); the Arts & Sciences
>>Issue is the place for that.  The purpose of the monthly newsletter is to
>>disseminate information.
>
>So, if the purpose of the kingdom newsletter is to disseminate
>information (which I believe is it's purpose as well), why do we persist
>in having elaborate, decorative "flyers" instead of just text material
>for event announcements? What will have to happen to accomplish this
>change? A kingdom chronicler who wants to do it this way? (Or are Aodhan
>and I the only ones who would want this change?)
>
>This brings up questions regarding local newsletters. Is their purpose
>also to disseminate information? And if so, the same type of information
>(ie officers' reports & event announcements) or should they have more of
>the A&S stuff? (Maybe this is why people insist on seeing the kingdom
>newsletter as a place for decorative event flyers. They are combining the
>local newsletter style with the kingdom newsletter style.)
>
>Estrill


I don't know about you, but I like to look at something with a little
aesthetic value.  If the *BS* were just a few text pages stapled together,
I probably wouldn't read it.  I save mine and the format we have now stores
very nicely, the colored covers help me recognize older issues, and I find
event announcements without any artwork to be boring and indicative of a
lack of thought.  Besides fighting, the primary focus of the SCA is Arts
and Sciences.  Reducing the newsletter to just that would detract greatly.
FWIW I also greatly dislike the move toward more and more computer
generated fonts, borders, etc.  Yack.


Catherine

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|Nan Bradford-Reid                    |HL Catherine Harwell, CIM, AST       |
|The Department of English            |Barony of Bryn Gwlad                 |
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