Children’s Centre Newsletter

Families that are registered with their local children’s centre receive three newsletters in a year. They are also automatically registered on the FIS information scheme. The information scheme distribution is staggered to fall in between children’s centre newsletters. For more information see the process for the Information Scheme.

Distribution

This newsletter is distributed electronically through Campaign Manager where possible and by post.

Frequency and timing

Each newsletter is individual to the children’s centre so there are 9 children’s centres that in a year each produce 3 newsletters (27 newsletters).

• March
• July
• November

Routes for people to sign up to the newsletter

• People register through their children’s centre. They are created on the children’s centre database. An email address or postal address is essential.
• People register through FIS to join the information scheme. Details need to be forwarded to children’s centres to register the family in their database.

Process for creating newsletter

• Helen sends the template to the Information Champions via the mailing list.
• The Information Champion and the designated worker compile the newsletter.
• This is then sent to the approval person for the centre. For the North, Claire Ruston. For the South, team leader. For Westfield and Hob Moor, Lynda Widdison. For Carr, Suzie Gridley.
• Once approved the Information Champion sends this to Helen.
• If necessary, changes are made, the citywide articles are added and Helen sends to the approval person for the centre.
• Helen sends the final newsletter to the Information Champion with mailing labels for distribution.

The time between stage 1 and stage 4 will be roughly four weeks and the time between stage 4 and 6 will be roughly one week. If there are any changes to this timescale Helen should be notified asap.

Newsletter Tips

• Double check we have permission for any photos which are included in the newsletter. NB, photos cannot be taken off the internet, if you want to include a picture and can’t find one suitable get in touch with Helen (the earlier the better).
• Make use of the branding and accessibility guidelines available online. For example, use Arial and try to stick to a size 12 font.
• Make sure any website links are correct.

Download more top tips for a good newsletter!

Sending the newsletter

A report is run from the children’s centre database. This shows the recipients name, email address, postal address and what centre they are registered to. Download instructions for running this report. 

• Where there is an email address the FIS Service Support Officer imports this list into Campaign Monitor (the software used to email out the e-newsletters) so the e-newsletters can be emailed out.
• Where there is no email address the postal addresses will be mail merged into mailing labels for each centre. These are sent to the centre for the hard copies to be distributed by post.

Once the FIS Service Support Officer has emailed out the labels and final version of the newsletter:

• Print out the newsletter for your centre and put in envelope.
• Print out the labels for your centre.
• Please only put the address label on the envelope. Please DO NOT put a 'return to sender' or 'if undelivered' label on the back of the envelope.
• Box up the envelopes ensuring that all address labels are facing up.
• Put a note on the box(s) to say how many envelopes are in each box and that it is the children's centre mail out as discussed with Claire Ruston.
• Get the box(s) to Cath Edwards at Library Square who will post them out via TNT.