Over the last several years, the District has had the objective of publishing two newsletters and one yearbook for distribution as hard copies to the membership. Typically, a spring newsletter has been mailed in conjunction with the yearbook, followed by a fall newsletter. Generally, this effort has cost in the range of $5,000 to $6,000. These procedures do not match those listed in the Operations Manual.
Charge to the Committee
The primary charge given to the committee by President Bob Mabry was to review and evaluate the functionality and cost-effectiveness of the current objectives and procedures related to the publication of the yearbook and newsletter.
Specific items to address included:
1. Process for preparing publications
2. Number and format of publications
3. Paper copy vs. electronic copy
4. Timing of distribution
5. Contents of the publications
6. Method of distribution
7. Advertising in the newsletters
Procedures
Chairperson Gene Arnold (VA) assembled a committee consisting of the
following District members:
Lonnie Yates (KY)
Betsy Williams (GA)
Bob Stammer (TN)
Colin Kinton (TN)
Dan Turner (AL)
David Robinson (NC)
Katie McDermott (NC)
Joe Hummer (NC)
Bill Mason (SC)
Ed Watt (TN)
Bob Canfield (DS)
Craig Hanchey (TN)
Calvin Sheets (VA)
A survey entitled “Publications Procedures Survey” was developed and distributed at the District’s 1998 annual meeting in Memphis. A copy is attached. This survey provided the primary source of information to the committee.
What We Know
ITE requests e-mail addresses from its members and includes them in its data base and Directory; however, as of this past June, the data base contained only about 370 e-mail addresses for SDITE members. This represents about 37% of the 996 voting members reported in the Spring 1998 edition of “News of the South”. It does not include, however, several hundred non-voting student members of ITE attending colleges and universities in the District who normally receive copies of the yearbook and newsletter.
Based on 46 responses to the survey, the following information is known. (While the sample size of 46 is very small, it is felt that the results are valid and representative of District membership. More to the point, even if the actual percentages may differ, general conclusions regarding member responses are still valid.)
Yearbook
1) A significant majority of the membership uses the Yearbook. Information on District officers, District committees, and Section officers and activities is used the most; however, all the information is of value to someone.
2) A significant majority of the membership wants the Yearbook to continue to be published.
3) Additional information suggested for inclusion in the Yearbook:
a) Directory of District members
b) District calendar
c) Section and Student Chapter web sites
d) ABD contacts and telephone numbers
e) Miscellaneous statistics for the Sections (e.g., membership) and the annual meeting (e.g., attendance)
f) Section committee chairs
g) Contact information for key International leaders
h) More telephone numbers and e-mail addresses in general
i) Newsletter deadlines
j) President’s goals for the year
Newsletter
1) Over 90% of the membership want to see District news, Section news, and reminders (e.g., meetings, paper submittals, and announcements) in the newsletter. Over three-fifths want technical articles, and almost half would like to see pictures. Other items of interest include the following:
a) Membership news (new members, deaths, etc.)
b) Web sites
c) Summaries or abstracts of technical articles
d) Officer reports
e) Helpful hints on pressing issues
2) District membership is about evenly split on whether there should be two newsletters a year (likely long but less timely) or three or more newsletters a year (likely short but more timely).
3) A slight majority of the membership recommends a combination of electronic and paper format for the newsletter; only about a quarter recommend a paper copy. About three-fifths recommend posting of the newsletter on the District’s web site; and only a few recommend the use of e-mail to distribute the newsletter.
4) Most of those recommending a combination feel that some form of preference should be given to the recipient.
5) A significant majority of the membership has both access to the District’s web site and an e-mail address. Most agree, however, that access to the web and an e-mail address is not universal to District membership.
6) Over three-fifths of the membership feel that the District should sell advertising space in the newsletter to help offset the cost; however, there was significant comment on this issue. A common comment was that space should not be sold as consultants and ABD members already contribute substantially to the District and Sections. On the other hand, it was noted that everyone else seems to sell advertising space in newsletters, and it does provide a needed source of revenue.
Conclusions and Assumptions
The following procedure for a newly created Publications Committee (to replace the existing Publications and Public Relations Committee) was developed based on the following assumptions and conclusions from the results of the Memphis survey and the Chairperson’s knowledge and own opinions regarding the feelings of the membership and Board.
1) The publication of the Annual Yearbook and newsletters is an important and desirable function of the District.
2) The cost of the District’s publications and distribution thereof should be reduced.
3) The District should take advantage of current technology in order to reduce the cost of the publications and their distribution.
4) Not every member of the District has access to the Internet or e-mail. Accordingly, paper copies of the publications should be made available to these members.
5) The ultimate goal, however, is that the Annual Yearbook and newsletters be produced and totally distributed electronically via the Internet and/or e-mail.
6) Maximum efficiency is obtained by using the membership data base maintained by ITE Headquarters and availing ourselves of the free address labels and electronic files provided upon request.
7) Both news items and technical articles are desirable.
8) Advertising in the newsletter is not “politically” desirable. Further, revenue from advertising is not as critical if the cost is reduced pursuant to #2 above.
9) News items must be timely; therefore, the idea of more frequent and shorter newsletters makes sense.
10) The District’s web page will continue to be in place and maintained.
Recommendation
It is recommended that the attached procedure for the Publications Committee be tried for one year. At the end of the year, the procedure should be evaluated and, as appropriate, revisions made. The revised procedure should then be incorporated into the District’s Operations Manual.
Attachments
1) Publications Committee
2) Publications Procedures Survey
PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE
Membership
The Chairperson should be appointed by the President; however, the Chairperson should solicit several SDITE members in his/her area to help. Each Section should be represented on the committee; ideally, the Section’s newsletter editor should be the member. The Section representative’s primary responsibility is to provide the District Publications Committee with up-to-date Section news upon request. (Accordingly, the Chairperson’s Section should have at least one other member on the committee to fulfill this responsibility.)
Publications Schedule
The Publications Committee should publish three newsletters and one yearbook during the calendar year, as shown in the schedule below. Suggested contents for the Annual Yearbook and each of the newsletters are provided later.
Annual Yearbook: Publish the District’s Annual Yearbook by February 15.
Winter Newsletter: Publish Newsletter #1 along with the Yearbook by February 15.
Spring/Summer Newsletter: Publish Newsletter #2 by June 15.
Fall Newsletter: Publish Newsletter #3 by October 15.
Responsibilities
The Vice-President is responsible for assembling the information for the Annual Yearbook and forwarding it in electronic format to the Chairperson of the Publications Committee. The Vice-President must work closely with a number of persons (e.g., the President, Section representatives on the Publications Committee, Chairperson of the Education and Student Chapter Committee) to obtain information for the various sections of the Annual Yearbook.
The Publications Committee is responsible for the following:
1) Preparing or soliciting the suggested newsletter articles and assembling them in electronic format.
2) Forwarding electronic versions of both the Annual Yearbook and newsletters to the District’s web page liaison.
3) Mailing post cards announcing the availability of the Annual Yearbook and newsletters on the SDITE web page. (See later discussion for optional e-mail post card.)
4) Providing paper copies or, if possible, electronic files via e-mail, to anyone so requesting.
Format
The Annual Yearbook and newsletters should be assembled electronically using common word processing software; e.g., WordPerfect or Word. The format itself should be such that desktop publishing is not required; e.g., a continuous flow of articles in a standard page layout is acceptable. It is not intended that the District pay someone for a “layout”. It is suggested that there be a table of contents (especially for the Annual Yearbook) to facilitate the location of information in the full document.
Distribution Procedures
Once the Annual Yearbook and newsletters are available on the District’s web page, the Publications Committee should undertake the following actions.
Mail post cards to the District’s membership, other ITE Districts, other ITE Sections, and ITE dignitaries (International officers and Director and Deputy Director at ITE Headquarters), that announce the availability of the Annual Yearbook and/or newsletters on the SDITE web page. The post card should contain the District’s web page address. It should also contain instructions on how to obtain a paper copy (or electronic copy via e-mail) of the document or documents and provide the name, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address (if available) of an appropriate contact person. This contact person should logically be the Chairperson of the Publications Committee; however, the contact may be anyone who is willing and able to assume the responsibility. Multiple copies (enough to cover the three web page postings and the number of mailings for each) of a generic post card containing this information should be printed at the beginning of each year. The address labels for the various groups to receive the post cards should be requested from ITE Headquarters several weeks in advance of each mailing. It is acceptable to pay a mailing service to process the post cards.
If possible, the announcement of the availability of the Annual Yearbook and/or newsletters on the SDITE web page should be sent via e-mail to District membership having an e-mail address. ITE Headquarters, upon request, can provide a master list (both hard copy and electronically) of available SDITE membership e-mail addresses. In this case, ITE Headquarters should be requested to provide post card address labels for those members not having an e-mail address. This will eliminate the labor-intensive effort of manually searching for and discarding the address labels for members having an e-mail address.
Mail paper copies of the Annual Yearbook or newsletters to anyone so requesting. It’s possible, though not likely, that a requestor may have an e-mail address (e.g., a free e-mail service that does not access the internet) and not be able to view/download a paper copy of the Annual Yearbook or newsletter from the District’s web page. If this is the case, and agreeable to the requestor, electronic files should be e-mailed.
Because members are constantly changing and/or upgrading their technical capabilities, it is suggested that these actions be undertaken for each mailing. Also, it is probably not efficient to try to maintain a “paper copy list” of members due to the labor-intensive efforts of manually searching for and discarding the address labels for members on such a list.
Suggested Contents of Annual Yearbook and Newsletters
It is suggested that the following information, if available, be contained in the Annual Yearbook and specific newsletter, respectively:
Annual Yearbook
1) Historical overview, including updated list of past presidents
2) Southern district officers with telephone and fax numbers and e-mail addresses
3) Past and future annual meeting sites with general chairpersons if known
4) Southern district committees with brief statement of responsibility and members
5) ABD members with contact information
6) Section officers, meeting information, and web site if one exists
7) Student chapters with faculty advisor and his/her address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address and web page if one exists
8) List of awards with brief description and past winners
9) District calendar
10) Contact information for key International leaders
Newsletters
ITEM Winter Summer Fall
President’s message ? ? ?
Vice-President’s report ? ? ?
Secretary-treasurer report ? ? ?
International director report ? ? ?
News from the sections ? ? ?
Miscellaneous international ITE news ? ? ?
Technical articles ? ? ?
Call for Papers (technical paper awards) ? ? ?
Call for Abstracts (presentation at next annual meeting ? ?
Call for Awards Nominations ?
Slate of officers for the upcoming election ?
Announcements about upcoming annual meeting ?
Preliminary announcements about upcoming annual meeting ?
News from annual meeting, including a general summary and attendance, election results, award winners, report from board meeting, ABD appreciation, award winners appreciation
New budget ?
Miscellaneous news/reports from the year-end board meeting ?
SECTION _____________
NAME/PHONE NO. (optional) _________________________________
PUBLICATIONS PROCEDURES SURVEY
(District Newsletter and Yearbook)
1. Do you use the District’s Annual Yearbook? ____ Yes ____ No
If yes, what information do you find most useful? _________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
2. Do you recommend that the District’s Annual Yearbook continue to be published? ____ Yes ____ No
3. Is there other information that should be reported in the District’s Annual Yearbook? ____ Yes ____ No
If yes, please describe:_________________________________
_____________________________________________________
4. What kinds of information would you like to see in a District newsletter?
____ District news (e.g. election results, award winners, committees, annual meeting reports)
____ Reminders (e.g. meetings, paper submittals, announcements)
____ Section news (e.g. summary of section activities)
____ Technical articles and technical information
____ Pictures
____ Other (please describe):___________________________
5. How often should the newsletter be published?
____ Twice a year (likely a long newsletter but less timely)
____ Three or more times a year (likely a shorter newsletter but more timely)
____ Other (please describe):________________________________________
6. What format would you recommend for the Yearbook and newsletter?
____ Electronic Mechanism for distribution: ____ Posting on SDITE web page
____ E-mail
____ Paper copy
____ Combination of electronic and paper (please explain):
________________________________________
________________________________________
_______________________________
7. If the newsletter was posted on the SDITE web page, could you access it?
____ Yes ____ No
8. Do you think everyone in the District has access or can find access to the SDITE web site?
____ Yes ____ No
9. Do you have an e-mail address?
____ Yes ____ No
10. Do you think everyone in the District has an e-mail address?
____ Yes ____ No
11. Should the District sell advertising space in the newsletter to help offset the cost?
____ Yes ____ No
Comments:______________________________
________________________________________
Please provide any other comments you might have about the newsletter and its publication.
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Thanks for your help. Please fax or mail to:
Gene Arnold
Virginia Transportation Research Council
530 Edgemont Rd.
Charlottesville, VA 22903
FAX 804/293-1990
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