Hello everyone, and welcome to the inaugural edition of The Driver's Seat. Here's the back story about the development of this new publication. The first point is to totally focus on you, the reader, to assure you are receiving the information you need now! The second point is to recognize our advertisers. They are totally focused on great service to us as customers. They also provide an enormous amount of support to our club. Please continue to utilize their services and products. At the Zone 8 President’s Meeting, I had the opportunity to attend a great seminar with Pete Stout, Editor of Panorama and former editor of Excellence. This informative workshop was very helpful to me as your editor of the Zuffenhausen News (ZN). A new and improved way of communicating with region members was suggested at the seminar. The key was the concept of dividing monthly event calendars and time-sensitive announcements from feature articles ... such as post event articles, personal stories/experiences, technical articles, etc. Another important point presented at the seminar was that each region should have a clear and consistent delivery of information across all of our platforms such as email, Facebook, the website and the Newsletter.
These points were discussed at the January SAR Board Meeting. In response to the advice given at the seminar and with approval by the Board, the decision was made to make some changes in 2016. The following is a summary of future changes:
1) We are going to change the schedule of the ZN. A hard copy issue will be published quarterly instead of monthly.
2) Each quarterly ZN publication will be all-color and feature more photographs. It will be filled with feature stories and technical articles from members across our region, Zone, and PCA.
3) The Driver's Seat will be provided to members as a supplement to the ZN. It will feature upcoming events for our region and Zone 8, as well as national events of interest to our local members.
4) The Driver’s Seat link will be emailed to members at the end of each month. It will feature time-sensitive information such as SAR's calendar of events and up-to- date announcements so you can sign up and plan your activities as you wish.
Note: Regarding Emailed Distributions: It is important that we get this message to all our primary members and affiliate family members (spouse, partner, etc.) Most of the member email addresses we have on file are for primary members, however we know that many co-members will want to receive emailed communications about upcoming events. If an affiliate member is not receiving and wishes to receive our emails, please notify us and provide their email address if different from yours. We will be sure to add them to our email distribution list.
We are excited about these changes and hope you will like what you see and read. We always welcome your comments and suggestions! The next printed publication of the ZN will be in April, 2016.
Axel