amateur astro club newsletter

Kevin Shaw wrote:

hi everybody,
I recently(perhaps foolishly)volunteered to take over the
chore of putting out my astronomy club's newsletter.At the same time
the person who was providing a large chunk of its content decided to
call it quits.So I have two issues that I hope members of this group
can help me with:General advice about putting out a newsletter and/or
a source for public domain or small fee content relating to
astronomical matters.My club is a small one and isn't expecting
anything grandiose,but I would like to fulfill my new duty to the best
of my ability.Any thoughts?Thanks in advance.

Good luck. At least you probably have modern PCs, word processing,
drawing, and image processing software (even fairly simple packages
are quite useful), good printers plus e-mail for distribution (little
or no licking stamps!). I did that back in the dark ages of a manual
typewriter and Xerox machine (those came just after pointed sticks and
clay tablets for those who don't remember).

Advice: Get somebody to HELP! Easier said than done I know, but
believe me deadlines get to be a drag after a few months of being a
one person operation. Use big fonts! Pull together club news,
meeting schedule, etc. That'll fill 1/8 page. Put together a sky
calendar. Lots of "resources" available for that, just don't violate
copyright, please. I probably have some old articles I wrote I'd be
happy to let you use, if any of them are not out of date (Flash! Earth
proven to circle Sun!).

Regards,
Russell

Rod Mollise wrote:

Just don't expect to get articles out of your club
buddies without a struggle! :-)

So true. But, speaking as one who also volunteered to edit my club's
newsletter, it _can_ get easier. After only two issues, I already have
people offering articles with nary a twist of the arm. But I realize that
it's the look of the publication that wins them over and I must confess that
is mainly the work of another club member. I don't think I could have come
up with a format by myself that looked half as good!

http://www.rasc.ca/nl/pulsar-2003-spring.pdf
http://www.rasc.ca/nl/pulsar-2003-summer.pdf