...a bigwig coach told her they loved her newsletter format...

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Confessions from a Thief
By: Maureen

Alright! I admit it. I am a thief. But honest I never did it on purpose.

I used Bev’s Imp Newsletter format for my own devices. She once shared with me that a bigwig coach told her they loved her newsletter format, so I thought, why not? I copied it into a Word document and deleted all her lovely news and saved the titles. Then I started to think how her “titles” might not fit my intentions all too well if I made my template like hers but changed the titles.

And what were these intentions? Well it was for my family. We have a huge problem in our family… to steal (yes it’s a hard habit to break) a quote from a famous movie: What we have here is a failure to communicate.

It’s a large family, because we consider even our extended parts just part of the family. Because we are so large, some members tend to be misinformed, misunderstood or generally just “missed” when it comes to sharing the happenings in our family.

What did start off as just immediate family has now extended to aunts, uncles, cousins, stepchildren, in-laws and anyone that anyone even considers someone in the family. I have about 40 emails in my newsletter list that I dutifully send a monthly quip to.
And usually add a name a month to the growing list.

This monthly quip has turned into a full-blown newspaper. I did start off filling in all the columns myself and reminded people to forward information to me that they wanted the “family” to know about. Now I get an average of 10 emails a month with LOADS of info and I mostly cut and paste what is sent to me. Everyone has become involved and we have a hoot doing it. The one thing I do alone is the feature article. I call it “The Flavour of the Month”. I just howled when my mom suggested I write an article on chocolate. Sigh…see what I mean about misinterpreted. I did however do one about chocolate but managed to relate it all to a personal experience. I think she “gets” it now. Like Bev, these topics are percolating in my life every month and the day I sit down to work on the newsletter, poof, out it comes.

We have a section for Condolences and Congratulations for anything adults or young ones want to brag about or be sad about. We have recipe section at the end, submitted by my niece who has since graduated from a famous cooking school on P.E.I. Last month was Chocolate Ravioli. Funny how that keeps popping up.

We all do tons of travelling, so I have a travel section. This suites a dual purpose: first that everyone knows where everyone is and going so we don’t have to worry and have contact info and the other is people to ship stuff back and forth via traveling relatives. It’s also a place for photos and sharing cool places.

I just added a new section called "Tidbits and Bites" for anything that doesn't really fit under the headings.

Finally we have a question section. Anyone from the “family”, in the strictest confidence can ask a question, and I put it out to the family to supply me with an answer. That way everyone can participate in that as well. We’ve had some interesting questions.
So one month we have the question and the next month we have the answer.

The final perk, well I get comments from everyone that I am a terrific writer and story-teller plus I FINALLY got my mother to say something positive about all the writing I’ve done. Okay okay so am I not only a thief but also I’m scrounging for kudos’.

Try it out and see what happens in YOUR “family”.