tinkermonkey;136130 wrote: A few ideas: first, pick a color for your newsletter to be printed on and stick with it.
We did that too in elementary PTO and it worked really well. We chose pale lavendar as it was one of the more commonly stocked colored paper available from Office Depot available in 500 sheet reams or by the case. It was definitely more expensive than white, but not as bad as the speciality colors.
The school didn't really use that color and agreed not to start. So everytime you saw lavender - it was PTO.
A few ideas: first, pick a color for your newsletter to be printed on and stick with it. If you can, run it past the school office manager/secretary and see about a color that is NOT in use at all by the school. That's what we are doing starting this year - anything sent home by PTSO will be in the astrobright blue (more expensive, but like Jim said, SO worth it!)
Second, does your school do boxtops? Have the boxtops coordinator be in charge of the recipe section - they have tons on the boxtops website and they all (of course) require products that use a boxtop or two!
I definitely recommend color. Think about all of those black and white fliers that come home in your child's backpack. Going color, which of course costs more, will make it stand out and will make a difference. I did this last year with my groups and I heard numerous kudos throughout the year.
M.P., similar to what you are thinking, I tried to have past event info on one side and the upcoming on the other. I included a picture for every section, and even started to use husky prints once we decided upon our new mascot.
Thanks CD--no we also do a paper distro. We order 8.5 by 17 paper and 8.5 X 11 and then do the repro on our xerox machine in the PTO room. The advertising basically pays for our paper needs during the year. It is a long process and we usually take 2 days for the repro and assembly and then they distro through the backpacks. It is worth it though because the feedback we get is terrific. It really keeps the word out there and by not making it too "needy" i.e. I don't usually ask for anything in my pres's column and we don't whine a lot about what we need...people actually read it with interest. Phew!!!!
d
ps--thanks on the open office..how do I access that?