Weekly news sheets came into existence because the sad reality is your busy members won’t remember to visit the website regularly unless they are reminded. There has been a weekly sheet in C&S for several years now and the members pile onto the website within hours of its issue – there is always a big spike in “hits” on news day!

I believe that a regular news feed adds 300% value to a website. In other words, it quadruples the effectiveness of the event adverts.

All the news sheets that the team currently issue contain local, Guild and national news, in that order. The philosophy is that we are trying to create a sense of belonging for ordinary ringers – they are part of a wider community of ringers that many of them are unaware of. Members of C&S love this – they feel included, they find it interesting, and now decide to attend events, training courses and residential holidays without any nagging….

There are lots of pre-made pages which are intended to be used as news sheets, and if you want one for your tower/district/special interest then please ask!!!

It takes about 3 minutes to send out a news sheet unless it is a yahoo group – they are dealt with at the end of this post. To start with I will assume you are using a google group or a simple email list.

Email Method (non-Yahoo-Group)

1. Open a window to send your email – this might be a google group window or a simple email window if it’s just your band.
2. The SUBJECT is your choice – something like “Fiddlecombe Bell Ringing News May 44th” works!
3. Open the news feed’s page
4. Copy the contents of the page
5. Paste into the email box
6. Remove any bits you don’t want to send
7. Add a personal message at the top – this is a nice touch.
8. and Send

The News Feed Pages

• Christchurch and Southampton “C&S E-News” 
• Isle of Wight Bellringing News
• Andover District News 
• Bellringing Around Basingstoke
• PORTSMOUTH DISTRICT E-NEWS
• Winchester District Bellringing News
• Alton and Petersfield “Changes Weekly”

And there are at present 2 tower-specific ones:

• Christchurch Priory Weekly News Sheet
• The Bournemouth Ring

Email method for Yahoo Groups

… make a right pig’s ear of the layout. Unfortunately this means photos are much more time consuming to use. Double whammy – Win-Port is a Yahoo Group.

1. Copy a photo-free version of your news feed such as this one which is the Headlines Only
2. Open a new message for the group, create new message, add subject, personal message etc etc
3. Paste the news
4. go to the end of each headline and press “enter” and wait 5 seconds. A photo and extract will be added for you.
5. Send

Facebook

1. Visit the page you want to send to Facebook.
2. Go to the bottom and click the Facebook icon and a “share to Facebook” window will open.
3. Click where it says “share to your own timeline” and select the appropriate group or page.
4. Write in the “say something” box – this is essential as the preview is a dull one here because there is no “featured image” on this post. Facebook is not able to see the news you are sharing for technical reasons.