Nike Corporation doesn't have such a bad motto! When I think about the decisions I have made in my life, I wonder at how little thought went into some of them. I just decided to go ahead with a plan and hoped it would work out. Sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't, but more often than not, something good came from the decision. That is how I went about publishing a family newsletter.
With the help of family reporters and some family history and photos of my grandmother, I compiled our first newsletter. I included a notation of the estimated cost of a year's subscription and sent it out. What I hadn't realized was how much my family had been craving such a publication. After I sent out our first issue, I received an overwhelming outpouring of gratitude from family members I hardly knew. Kudos came flying from all directions, along with checks to keep the newsletter coming. One family member said that when "...I read our family newsletter, I have a tremendously warm feeling of closeness for the entire family...."
I had thought on occasion that such a project would be a boon to the family but never considered how it would get done, or who would do it. At the end of a particularly pleasant family reunion, I leaned back in my chair and said to my cousins, "I really miss you guys! What we need is a family newsletter, so we can keep up on each other." Of course the affirmative responses were all followed with a "Yeah, but who would do the work?" To my surprise, I said I would. That began an endeavor for me that was fraught with peril, because I knew next to nothing about publishing a newsletter, and had no idea how to organize a family newsletter. So I just
did it. The result has been a tremendous growing experience for me and, I think also, for many of my family members. I knew very little about journalism, design, desktop publishing, or my family; but, in the years that I have been publishing our family newsletter, I have learned a significant amount about all of these subjects.
