By the time you’re reading this...we'll have started incorporating updated communication guidelines!
(If you haven’t read Austin’s article on the new website and the Interchange moving to a digital first format, you may want to do so before reading this since they’re partner pieces, with his setting the stage.)
You may have noticed something different about this edition of The Interchange but haven’t quite been able to put your finger on it. It’s the font! We’ve moved from Times New Roman to Garamond as part of our adoption of The Episcopal Church (TEC) Visual Identity Guide, creating a uniform look across all our communications. Garamond was chosen by TEC in part because the Book of Common Prayer is printed in a derivative of this font.
We’ve also expanded our Communications Team to include Margaret Lieberman, writer and editor, and Robin O’Brien, bulletin board artist and manager. Austin Susman and I are co-chairs of the team, which includes Linda Workman and Chris+, with Mary Fitzgerald as an ad hoc member. We’ll also be inviting people to join us for limited-time projects; perhaps helping us gather ideas, do research or write an article. If you’re interested, let us know. We’ll keep you in mind.
We’re excited about the possibilities of our “digital-first” perspective, with some of us (well, me, for sure) having to re-think communicating with the parish in ways that simply didn’t exist when I began doing communications. It’s wonderful to do this work with Austin, who has a very clear vision about how we use our web site, Facebook page, This Week at St. John’s, The Interchange and the upcoming Interchange Digest in coordinated ways.
The Communications Team took a good, long look at how we’ve done business to date and have put in place some guidelines to help all of us – committees or individuals sending in announcements or columns, rotating a column among all ministry teams, article lengths, and general guidelines about where different types of information will be published by the editorial staff. Copies of the guidelines will be provided to Committee Chairs and frequent contributors for the May edition; if you’re simply interested and would like a copy let me know.
We know we’re entering new territory and are committed to adapting as we go. In fact, within a couple days of establishing the guidelines we made a change because something wasn’t working and we’ll continue this sort of review and action. We welcome your feedback, please let us know how we’re doing.
