NewslettersEast Coast Truckers Charity Newsletter and Annual Magazine - From the EditorsThe ECTC Newsletter is a well worthwhile promotional aid for our Charity. Having a well produced, good quality magazine does enhance the status of East Coast Truckers in the minds of the general public. Your trustees have decided that they wish the magazine to continue provided it is self-funding. They are not looking for a profit but it must not cost the charity a single penny. We, the editors, thoroughly agree with this. However, this decision must be included with several other issues that will determine the future success or failure of the newsletter. In order to keep the issue price at a sensible level, each edition relies very heavily on advertising revenue. Chasing up potential advertisers is a time consuming exercise that also adds, in the form of fuel for office visits etc., to our production costs. Fuel costs will be reimbursed willingly, but we really do need a few people who would be prepared to approach some new advertisers. We will organise advertising copy and photos etc. if required, once we have a new customer on board. Secondly, it is very important that, having committed to a print run, we do sell all the copies. Everyone must be able to encourage the proprietor of one of their stopping points to have some copies of the Tymes on the counter to sell. Some sites move dozens of copies. If they can do it, so can others. But these cafe and snack bar owners need to be approached in the first place. Please try and find the time, or the courage, to ask potential outlets to stock a few copies for sale at the counter. Promoting a worthwhile charity can only add prestige to their business operation. Laying out the magazine for the printer does take Ivan quite a while. Neither of us are publishers, but we do have to produce a page-by-page finished product in the form that can go straight to print. The photos are properly sized and edited and are resolved at the required dpi quality. The articles are in good English and notes submitted to Mike are tidied up, hopefully without losing the individual quality and style of the original writer. In this way, we end up with a magazine that would grace anybody's coffee table and confer credit on the charity. We have identified where our little "duo" has got to evolve into more of a "team". Selling advertising space, recruiting selling outlets are the areas where extra help is essential. A few more hands on board to create a working team would make the production of the newsletters a more of a pleasurable task. Remember this is your newsletters and magazine and without your help they will cease to-be. Our thanks to all the Member and Friends who have submitted stories, letters etc and introduced new advertising clientele. Mike Read and Ivan Hardy |