Issue number two for 2022 was put to bed today. YAY! It’s a satisfying feeling to finally get it approved and done.

I sent the newsletter to my co-editor to proof read and to make sure I made all the requested changes from the Board of Directors. Then weird stuff happened. I had made changes and they didn’t save. Also when I made a few corrections, photos disappeared and entire blocks of text disappeared. My layout skills haven’t kept up with the newest version of the program.

I held my breath when I hit send. It’s done. And I have a few months until it’s time to do it all over again.

It’s hard to remember back to when I wrote nine newsletters a month. That was way before internet and newsletters were a big thing. With social media, blogs, and email newsletters, not many are still printed and delivered via snail mail.

Without me stepping up to take over the newsletter, this one would have ended after 15 years of being published. I like the old fashioned printed newsletter. There’s something to be said for reading on paper.

I edited the newsletter for my kids swim team on a volunteer basis for years. We used to mail it out with the monthly billing. Eventually the billing went online — and my son started a website and posted the newsletter there. The newsletter was no longer printed. That was before the iphone got popular. We were using an Apple program that worked well for the new iphone, but not for the Blackberry. One of the board of directors wanted us to invest in software that was older so it would be compatible with Blackberry phones because he predicted the iphone would never amount to more than 10% of phones. Do they make Blackberries anymore?

Then one of the coaches told me she didn’t see a place for the newsletter anymore. She felt Twitter and FB would be more up to date. I was sad to see that newsletter go away.

What are your thoughts about newsletters? Do you see them very often or do you think they are going by the wayside?