Editor Wanted

Newsletter Editor / Web Site Maintainer Wanted

The March '98 issue of the Salami Merchant will be my last one. March of 1998 will mark my 13th issue, It's been fun, but it's time to pass on the post of newsletter editor and web site maintainer.

If you have any interest in becoming the newsletter editor and/or web site maintainer, please let me know.

What it Involves:

SARA issues a monthly newsletter, currently on both paper and on the Internet. It will be up to the future newsletter editor to choose if they would like to maintain both forms along with SARA's growing web site. Just to give an idea of how things are now, I'll describe the system as it exists.

If it is desired to keep SARA's newsletter and web sites in a form similar to the one they are in now, a future newsletter editor should have access to:

	Internet Web space (many internet providers supply this with their accounts). SARA currently has free space available at the QSL.Net site, but there are numerous restrictions and reliability issues involved with QSL.Net. It's been working well over the past couple of months, but site maintenance is nearly impossible suring prime-time. You can try it and see if it works for you.
	A decent HTML (web page) editing program (I use Microsoft Frontpage 98, and the site is currently set up for that, but there are many programs available, many for free, that will do the job)
	A decent Publishing program. I use Microsoft Publisher '97, but any decent word processor will suffice.

Here's how the process works now:

The editor collects articles and other contributions from the membership during the month. Over the past year, these contributions have varied from 5 articles in a month, to several months with no contributions at all.

Near the end of the first week of the month, all the articles are collected and assembled into a web page using Microsoft Frontpage '98, which is then posted to an Internet server. An e-mail is sent to all of the members that currently have an e-mail address on file, notifying them that the newest newsletter is now available.

The contents of the newsletter is then transferred into Microsoft Publisher '97, and is formatted into a form suitable for paper printing.

The newsletter is currently printed in paper form by the employer of one of our members. The editor currently sends a print file via e-mail to the printer. The printer prints the copies from that file and staples the newsletters. Between 50 and 60 copies are usually printed each month, and are usually ready within 3 to 4 days. The 60 copies are then folded, have stamps & mailing labels attached, and are then mailed. Currently, the editor prints the mailing labels, and either the editor or another volunteer folds, stamps, & mails the newsletters. As a side note, the newsletter can also be provided to the printer in an old-fashioned paper format, but this takes more time and loses considerable resolution.

The goal is to have the newsletters in the hands of the members a few days before the normal monthly meeting on the third Thursday of the month.

I find that I spend between 10 and 20 hours per month, including assembly, formatting, uploading, editing, writing articles, finding articles, and other miscellaneous web site maintenance. The newsletter occupies about 75% of that time.

What I Will Do:

I can provide existing newsletters and web site files as templates to you on diskette, Zip disk, or via FTP. I will provide very limited help to get someone going on this. I will continue to maintain the SARA web site until no later than June 1, 1998 if the new editor wishes, to give the new editor a chance to come up to speed on web page authoring (it's not that difficult if you have the right tools)

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�Copyright 1998, Silvercreek Amateur Radio Association
For problems or questions regarding this web contact [N8CD].
Last updated: March 11, 1998.
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