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Thread started on 4/12/2007 19:07

david

david

website

I’ve set up a system which allows us to send a newsletter to everyone registered on the site. I thought that, ahead of the Climate March, it could be useful to reach those who aren’t CRAGgers or aren’t in regular contact with their CRAGs. There are loads of people who signed up to the site in the media frenzy in May but never returned!

Good idea? What use we might put it to beyond signposting major events? Any exciting ideas to reach out to our “lost users”? Or does anyone have the time and energy to edit a regular (but infrequent) CRAG missive?

‹ The Big Green Challenge: should we apply? CRAG get-together Spring 2009. Treesponsibility again ? ›
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good idea

written on 4/12/2007 19:35

john ackers

john ackers

This is a good idea but cannot think much about it before Dec 8th. Don’t think people will mind having the odd unsolicited email. Worth putting links to interesting threads and reminding them that they can subscribe for updates by email maybe at the bottom.

 
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First newsletter, 5 Dec 2007

written on 6/12/2007 10:10

Jessica

Jessica

David, this is excellent, well done!

The style is easy to read (although the lay-out on my yahoo email came out wonky – only puts one word on each second line). And I think sets the right tone – informative and chatty.

I think we should definitely have a newsletter – at least on ad hoc basis, and maybe as a regular thing if we can sort out time for doing it. And people can easily unsubscribe and opt back in to receiving it whenever.

Hopefully this should solve our problem of keeping in touch with people who haven’t subscribed to receive updates, or seldom check the website. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner. We could sweep up recent news or topical forum discussion, and flag up coming events.

I also really like the section at the end reminding people how they can subscribe to website update. Perhaps you could add a little more detail saying that you can subsubscribe to website updates on local or forum or both or just a daily digest (if i’m right that we have a digest function??)

Have you also posted the newsletter on the site? I suggest you make a new, obvious, tab on the homepage saying ‘latest newsletter’ or something, which links instantly to the latest, and to a newsletter archive. Probably you are planning on doing this anyway…

 
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First newsletter sent out

written on 6/12/2007 15:11

david

david

Yes, I sent out the initial newsletter last night to the almost 500 website subscribers that have signed up so far. It was cobbled together from a load of suggestions various people sent in by email, and your climate march piece, Jessica, which was good stuff – it set a good tone I think. It’s at Climate Marches, N. American CRAGs and the website.

I put the first one in the forum temporarily, but I’m not yet sure where they should live permanently – maybe in the wiki. It’s a good idea to have an archive linked to from the home page.

Because we don’t yet have a daily digest (someone’s now working on the code again, it seems) I’m a bit hesitant about pushing email notifications, especially for the main forum, where you really end up getting a lot of mail.

We can also allow people to sign up to the newsletter without registering on the site, but I’d need to set it up. I’m not yet sure whether that’s a good idea or not – do lots of people want to stay up to date but not commit to registering fully?

 
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Drafting newsletters, an editor, and other issues

written on 5/2/2008 14:41

david

david

I was chatting to Andy about this, and we came up with the idea of having a draft newsletter on the go in the wiki. Anyone wanting to contact the whole CRAG community (eg. for research or surveys) could add their section directly to the draft (or as a comment here). When it was ready, or reached the deadline, it could then be sent out.

If anyone has the time to edit this ie. pull the contributions together, I think that would be preferable to being entirely wiki.

We could have regular sections: latest media, new groups – any others? I’d also suggest it goes out quarterly, which would mean the next one would be March/April (the first went out at the beginning of December).

Should this be global, or split by country?

 
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Oh definitely global

written on 5/2/2008 15:29

shannon

Global. Because there is not a lot that has happened here yet with results and it’s inspiring to see the numbers come in from the UK CRAGs. It’s also important to see this as a world effort.

 
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Newsletter for 11 April 2008

written on 11/3/2008 17:07

david

david

Well, I think it’s time another newsletter went out, and I’ve put down a prospective date of 11th April to give us plenty of time to pull together material. Also, I’m hoping we may have some more end-of-year results by then. We can be flexible, but I think some sort of deadline is necessary!

I’m happy to edit and pull this together myself (although if anyone else wants to volunteer, please do, as it would leave more time for me to work on website stuff) – but I don’t have the time to write it entirely. So I’m hoping (!) that people can submit copy on events or subjects they’ve been involved in, or are particularly interested in. I suggest that each piece should be not much longer than ~300 words long, as a guideline.

Here are some suggestions for this next one:

  • Tree-planting write-up (Jessica’s on this one, I think)
  • Oxfam competition winners

If you can submit anything for these, or suggest any other topics, please comment here!

 
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More ideas for April 2008 newsletter

written on 17/3/2008 11:46

Peckham Anna

In addition, how about:

  • update on Big Green Challenge bid – this is a major achievement, whatever the outcome, and we need to celebrate it and learn from whatever it throws back at us…

and on a regular basis:

  • brief summary of any other events/meetings at which CRAGs will be participating in the next month or so [e.g. Leeds Council recently had a Climate Change Strategy or somesuch I understand which some CRAGgers attended] so that it can be seen we are an active force, and also gives people another way to make contact with us
  • general update of ongoing academic interest in CRAGs? [so that it can be seen the idea of carbon rationing and “taking climate change personally” is of considerable and growing interest by people thinking about these issues, not just limited to a very select few]
  • brief reminder of any media interest since the previous newsletter

Best wishes

Anna

 
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April 11th newsletter update

written on 27/3/2008 16:23

david

david

Thanks, Anna. That looks good for the contents list. I think we have takers for the Oxfam write-up (Anna/John/Kat?) and the Tree planting (Jessica?). I’m happy to do the BGC and media stories (unless anyone else wants to!). Any events (with a CRAG slant) coming up that anyone wants plugged?

I suggest we also give a mention to the public launch of the Carbon Account (do you have a bitesize version of your press release, Jamie?).

 
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April 2008 draft ...

written on 8/4/2008 11:46

david

david

I have started a draft of the April newsletter. Please add anything extra you want to go in, or suggestions on the current version, as a comment here or email david.

 
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April newsletter put back one week

written on 14/4/2008 14:52

david

david

I have put back the April newsletter to the 18th, to coincide with the public announcement of the BGC results. So, any more contributions are still very welcome!

 
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Spring 2008 newsletter now out ...

written on 23/4/2008 20:58

david

david

The newsletter for Spring 2008 is now out, and you can read it at Spring 2008: First Year Reductions, BGC success, and more!. Thanks for all the ideas and contributions, and please add a comment here for anything to go into the next one!

 
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Useful thanks

written on 24/4/2008 08:27

robinsmith3

robinsmith3

Thanks for doing this. My apologies for not contributing.

One thing missing is the stuff that has proven unsuccessful. I feel this is important though understand its difficult to include. For example we tend to gloss over the fundamental outcome that people don’t want to pay for their emissions…even craggers! By saying we don’t care or lets turn it into something positive is really a cover up. This is root cause of resolving climate change, CRAG has proved it, and we are implicitly denying it.

We are miss serving the public by not making it explicit (dare I say becoming bad politicians) Do we think they will respect us for this?

Brgds

 
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October 2008 newsletter

written on 29/10/2008 20:02

david

david

High time for another newsletter, I think. We can follow the format of the last newsletter, which was roughly …

  1. Several headline pieces
  2. Media
  3. New groups
  4. Wider community
  5. Upcoming events

Some things we could talk about are …

  • Big Green Challenge outcomes
  • Forthcoming surveys, pitch ins (CRAG stories, Census, Website planning …)
  • Spring Gathering

Please add ideas or anything you’d like to go in as comments below, or email us material.

 
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