Many non-profit organizations stage annual fund raising drives, and this is not so different; we aim to raise funds by lowering costs. That means we have to come up with novel, entertaining, (manipulative), engaging, (guilt-tripping) ways to convince you to switch from receiving a printed copy via snail mail, to receiving your Gardiner Gazette digitally via email. How are we doing so far?
Jerry Lewis did the telethon; National Public Radio does the “call now to make your pledge” thing; PBS interrupts regular programming to say “ we have only 15 minutes left to raise 40 gazillion dollars!” So, what can the Gardiner Gazette do? How about, “pleeeeease?” NO? “Pretty pleeeeease?”
OK. We can do better. First of all, we realize that for some people, receiving a seven megabyte attachment to an email is, shall we say, unwelcome. One Gardiner resident who is still on dial-up told me it took him half an hour to download, and that if I ever (ever) sent him an attachment that large again he would hunt me down and do harm to me. Thanks to this subtle nudge, we have changed our digital delivery method. Gazettes are now delivered digitally via an on-line, large file sharing program. All you get is a normal email with a link in it. When you click on the link The Gazette opens and you can read it and close it, or save it to your computer. Isn’t that cool? Isn’t that modern?
OK, there’s more. We have, in our hot little hands, a full-use, annual membership to Mohonk Preserve valued at over $100. Switch to digital delivery before February 28th and you will go into a drawing to win that pass. The winner will be contacted directly, and announced on our Facebook page. (Doing a lot better now, right?)
Finally, we’re going to give you five great reasons to switch to digital delivery of The Gardiner Gazette:
1. There will be fewer arguments in your household. Instead of the usual savage fights over who gets to read The Gazette first, each family member can have their own copy, delivered to their individual email addresses.
2. The digital Gazette is in full color and has convenient links to our Facebook page at the end of each article so you can immediately post comments.
3. 2,500 copies of The Gazette are mailed every quarter. That’s 10,000 copies a year. Each copy is 16 pages. That’s 160,000 sheets of paper. According to howthingswork.com, a tree one foot in diameter and 60 feet tall would produce 80,500 sheets, so just to print the little old Gardiner Gazette we’re DESTROYING two MAJESTIC trees that took HOW long to grow?! (OK, we got the guilt-tripping part out of the way).
4. We asked really nicely.
5. If you switch now you won’t have to read another article like this next year.
So, email gardinergazette@earthlink.net NOW. Tell us the snail mail address we should remove from the list, the email address or addresses you want The Gazette to go to instead, and give us your phone number so we can follow up with you if we get any email bounce-backs.
How are we doing now?!