Post a reply

Catherine,

So far we have been a bit sporadic in our stories, which is what led me to think it would be time to get more systematic. As you said, we can spend a lot of time writing reports, and how much value does it have? I'm trying to think of ways of getting more mileage out of the time spent. We get some general feedback, but not much yet. It is a good idea to get the volunteers to write stories. Over the last few years with Edmund Rice Camps we've got a lot of volunteers to write stories. Some of these can be found on the website at www.erc.tsv.catholic.org.au and go to the Volunteers page for some, and to the News page (on each Update) for others. On the Volunteers page there is also a Story Checklist suggesting to the volunteers some prompts.

One of my objectives in trying to get Vinnies stories out and about is to help generate a 'good news' feel to what young people are contributing to Vinnies, especially among the older Vincentians. They can sometimes wonder whether they're a dying breed and whether there is reason to hope for the future of Vinnies. So I'd see the potential audiences as:

• Vincentians
  Youth
  General Catholic population
  Schools

At the moment in Townsville we have potential access to the following sources of communication:

• "Vinnies Insider" is a local general Vinnies newsletter procuced every second month.
  "Catholic News" is a quarterly insert by the diocese into the local paper the Townsville Bulletin.
  The "Catholic Leader" has a page or two each six weeks on the Townsville diocese.
  The Catholic Education office produces a glossy quarterly magazine.
  We can get stories on the websites of Edmund Rice Camps, Catholic Youth Ministry, and the Catholic Diocese.
  The SASSY Forum.
  For special events we can get spots on community radio.
  We can also get some emails circulated to contacts of the Catholic Youth Office.
  Parish Bulletins.
  Special newsletters or brochures we might produce ourselves.

I couldn't say yet how successful it's all likely to be. Bear in mind that these are just periodic media. The main juggling act is weighing up time vs likely effectiveness.

I've just seen a copy of Laine's October Newsletter, which I hadn't previously been aware of. It is very informative. Does anyone else put out a regular newsletter for their area? In Townsville we are starting to look at our information strategy since we have, in a sense, a single pool of regular stuff which needs to be 'packaged' as reports, newsletters, email newsletters, forum contributions, contributions to Catholic Leader, etc. Like all of us, I tend to be fairly busy, so I hope to come up with a way of getting better 'mileage' out of the time we spend writing up stories, reports etc. The same piece might go in a report, a local newsletter, a Catholic Leader article, a Catholic Education Office newsletter, or whatever, to reach different audiences. Any thoughts welcome.