The topic for my President’s Message this month is the newsletter. Our monthly newsletter, Bridges, has been prepared and edited by volunteers, published by a third party and distributed to over 5,600 community households, electronically and through Canada Post, free of charge for many years. From time to time, the BRCA discusses whether, and how, we should continue to put out an official community newsletter.
I was the editor of the newsletter for a number of years, so I have first-hand knowledge of what goes into putting it out every month. The process generally involves receiving submissions from persons and organizations and reviewing and editing the content and format of the submissions to meet the guidelines required by the publisher. In order to be able to print, publish, and distribute the newsletter the publisher sells advertising to third parties. The BRCA has no involvement in the content and sale of the advertising that appears in our newsletter. For example, if the publisher decides to include paid political ads in the newsletter, such as appeared in the April issue, the BRCA is not consulted. For this reason, we require the publisher to include a disclaimer in every issue that says: “Bridgeland-Riverside Community Association is not affiliated with any advertiser or third party whose content of information appears in Bridges”. The disclaimer goes on to say: “Opinions expressed in Bridges are those of the author or advertiser only and may not reflect those of the BRCA or the publisher of Bridges”.
The amount of space allotted to our submissions each month is dictated by how much of the newsletter is taken up by paid advertising. While we encourage and are most appreciative of submissions from community members, it often happens that items submitted to the editor do not end up in the newsletter due to space limitations. There is nothing we can do about that. In addition, items submitted to the editor sometimes are not forwarded to the publisher as they are of a commercial nature. Our agreement with the publisher does not allow us to submit items that mention or promote specific businesses. In such cases, we advise the person who submitted the article to contact the publisher to get information on paid advertising. An example of this in action is that I can, and have on a number of occasions, in my President’s Message encouraged readers to support our local businesses in general, but in doing so, I am not allowed to identify any specific businesses in the community.
The BRCA Board has in the past considered whether it should publish its own newsletter, thereby giving it complete control over content. The main reasons such discussions have not led to that result, are time, cost, and distribution. Simply put, we do not have the volunteer resources to do everything required to publish a quality newsletter nor do we have the money to pay a third party to do it. Also of importance is the fact the publisher is able to use Canada Post to distribute hard copies of the newsletter. The Board has discussed limiting distribution to electronic means but feel that this would prevent a significant sector of the community, notably seniors, from getting the newsletter.
The compromise is we try to maximize the use of our BRCA social media accounts and our website to distribute timely news to the community and use the newsletter to get the word out on less time-sensitive matters. We remain committed to sharing information in the most accessible and effective ways possible — balancing tradition with technology to serve our community well.
Alex MacWilliam
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