Electronic Newsletter Alternative

The Piscataquis County Cooperative Extension is pleased to present you with the opportunity to receive your Piscataquis Gardening Newsletter and your Piscataquis Farming Newsletter electronically.

For the past five years we have been able to provide this newsletter to you for free.  Since we publish each newsletter every month, publishing and mailing these newsletters to more than 700 interested individuals costs over $3,000 per year. Our state office has asked that we try to reduce costs where possible and electronic delivery of this newsletter is an idea that some of our readers suggested.

If you choose to receive your copy of these newsletters electronically, you will not only help to reduce our publishing and mailing costs, but you will gain the advantages of electronic media. The electronic newsletter will have “live links” that will allow you, for example, to instantly send an e-mail with a question to me or to link to a related article. The electronic version will also include a link to a “printer-friendly version” if you want to produce your own hard copy, and the electronic newsletters will be archived on the Web so that you can refer to or search previous issues if you wish.

This issue that you are currently reading is on the web now at http://www.umext.maine.edu/piscataquis/gardening/newsletter.htm . Please take the time to look at it and determine if our electronic newsletter meets your needs. If it does, you can sign up for your electronic newsletter from the link on the above page. We are working with a company called Constant Contact that will help us to efficiently manage the email addresses.

We ask for your mailing address in addition to your email so we will be able to contact you if your email no longer works. Of course we will not share your email with anyone.  Once you sign up for the electronic version we will remove you from the hard copy mailing list. E-mail distribution will begin with our November 2007 newsletter. 

This company also will allow us to easily survey you to assess your interests, needs and questions in the future.

This is essentially a “trial offer.” The time and effort required to create an electronic newsletter in addition to the published hard copy may not be cost-effective if we do not get enough requests for the electronic version. Also, anyone who prefers to receive a hard copy in regular mail will continue to do so unless we hear from you otherwise. Thanks, in advance, for considering the electronic newsletter alternative.

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