The Cobseo Weekly Email

[Patrick.keefe]

Dear All,

I recently had an exchange with Sophie on this subject, because I dislike the often vast amounts repeated week after week and asked if she’d mind me raising this with cluster members. She welcomed the idea of Cobseo receiving feedback on this, particularly since they have just appointed their new head of Comms! Hence this post – request responses are posted here so that they are all in one place and encourages use of the forum!
Looking at the e-mails for 7-11 & 14-18 Sep as examples, the majority of entries are repeats from the previous week’s. Sophie’s reasoning for this is ‘because often people don’t read the newsletter when they are away, summer for example, and so miss important news items, hence the reason why we run some items a couple of weeks in a row’. My experience is that some items remain for months and I have to skim pages and pages to see if anything is new. It is all very well separating the news items into the various categories, but I would prefer new items at the top and, if necessary, the repeats to be in their categories (for example).

Topic

[Patrick.keefe]

Dear All,

I recently had an exchange with Sophie on this subject, because I dislike the often vast amounts repeated week after week and asked if she’d mind me raising this with cluster members. She welcomed the idea of Cobseo receiving feedback on this, particularly since they have just appointed their new head of Comms! Hence this post – request responses are posted here so that they are all in one place and encourages use of the forum!
Looking at the e-mails for 7-11 & 14-18 Sep as examples, the majority of entries are repeats from the previous week’s. Sophie’s reasoning for this is ‘because often people don’t read the newsletter when they are away, summer for example, and so miss important news items, hence the reason why we run some items a couple of weeks in a row’. My experience is that some items remain for months and I have to skim pages and pages to see if anything is new. It is all very well separating the news items into the various categories, but I would prefer new items at the top and, if necessary, the repeats to be in their categories (for example).

[mark.cann]

i am inclined to agree with you. I actually think the primary source should be the website which more logically can display news as it comes in. The newsletters i am afraid i quickly scan as so little is relevant to me. I know the newsletter makes COBSEO feel they are doing all they can to keep members informed however i am not sure it is that effective.

[simon.atkin]

I agree with both Patrick and Mark, there should be no need to repeat the same each week on the newsletter. I would be comfortable if a data base of members emails was available for use by other COBSEO members to circulate information direct.

[robert.settle]

I too have to agree with Patrick and Mark having tended to give the COBSEO weekly Email very low priority and had all but ignored Patrick’s email just because of the subject. Perhaps a monthly email would suffice with important matters being flagged up as single subject emails as and when they arise.

[alex.sharpe]

Dear Patrick,
Fully concur with your comments.
News is only News when it’s new – but given Sophie’s rationale of members potentially missing items then your suggestion of a chronological piece makes absolute sense.
Perhaps it also the case that weekly is too often (and regularity and repetitiveness not fostering full engagement).
An alternative might be a monthly newsletter which could encourage membership to read more carefully with any important breaking news sent out as bulletins as and when required.

[Author]

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