The Future of Your Club Newsletter

submitted by Ann Morrow, Club Member

A club. A mission. A group of club members. A calendar of bicycle rides. A means to communicate.

One of the pieces of the above puzzle is in flux right now, which is why your PBC newsletter, fondly known for years now as the Quick Releases (so clever!), looks different and may not have appeared in your email on exactly the 1st of the month.

Our most recent Quick Releases Editor, Lynn Blanchard, resigned. Of importance in my mind is, “How do we communicate with our members about the current and relevant happenings of PBC?”

Having been the QR editor myself for 10 or 11 years long ago, when it was made of paper, I do not want that job again. Not that there’s anything wrong with the job; it’s just that other people come to the table with other visions and ideas and keep things interesting. And I do not have the skillset for digital!

I’ve been talking to others about this a bit, but many of you may not be aware of our current predicament. That’s why I’m writing this article for the QR, such as it is.

Do we need a newsletter? I think so. I am a firm believer that the newsletter unifies us, as it keeps us informed about club members and activities. We are an active club. We need to know what’s going on to support the activity or even to protest it if we feel our club is headed down the wrong bike path.

Thoughts?

What should said newsletter look like? That would be up to the editor and their skills and abilities. It can be basic or elaborate. The feature we need is a conduit for communication.

Thoughts?

Can we use our website more to augment the newsletter? While I think our website is pretty current, can we club members be more proactive in accessing that information and helping keep it relevant? For example, the monthly club meeting is on the 1st Thursday of the month. It’s on our ride calendar if you need some details. Can members go to that link rather than publishing it each month like breaking news in the newsletter?

Thoughts?

We are at a transitional fork in the road right now, and I’d like to use it for good. How can we think out of the box? Let’s think about what we need vs. what we want and move forward accordingly.

Meanwhile, the elephant in the room is that we urgently NEED an editor to take charge of QR. In the past, our editors have had virtually complete autonomy. This is your opportunity to create what you think we need. It does NOT need to replicate past QRs. Obviously, if you go off the rails and use it for other purposes, the board will probably step in! But I think you understand what I’m trying to say: PBC boards do not tend to micromanage.

Please give all of this some thought and respond to me, or let’s talk about it at the May club meeting on Thursday, May 7, where our own Martha Munoz will be speaking about riding in Colombia.