The initial effort was modest: a four- page paper with basic information published four times a year and focusing mainly on chapter affairs as well as the contents of general presentations at meetings. However, since then, our four-page newsletter has evolved into sixteen pages and is distributed to teachers throughout Japan as well as educators working in Laos, Pakistan and so on. The paper now includes book reviews, interviews with teachers, useful websites and articles from teacher's abroad. It has served our chapter well and given us an identity. Indeed, members often ask when the next issue will be forthcoming.
Interest in the newsletter has generated interest in the chapter itself and several new enthusiastic members in our chapter can be directly attributed to our newspaper. I have made it a habit, therefore, to distribute copies of our latest issue at international conferences, book fairs and chapter meetings. In addition, I leave copies at places frequented by the international English teaching community within our city, especially restaurants and pubs.
I see the newspaper, moreover, as serving several important functions. First, it advertises our chapter and its activities. Potential members with no previous knowledge of JALT become informed of chapter activities by means of the newsletter. Secondly, the newsletter is also a paper which brings English teachers into contact with one another. At the end of each article, the name, email address and profile of the contributing writer are included, leading to further contact.
Surprisingly, articles are easy to acquire and I have found that most of those who contribute do so willingly and with enthusiasm. Articles can be sent by email and are easily copied and pasted onto a Microsoft word layout. I often ask teachers to submit reviews of textbooks they may be using for the first time as well as ones recently published. I also solicit articles from English teachers in foreign countries inviting them to write about teaching situations abroad. I myself report on workshops and papers presented at international conferences. Furthermore, useful information can easily be acquired from newspapers and surfing the Net can lead to helpful educational websites of interest to English teachers.
As mentioned above, our chapter newsletter is now in its third year of publication. We have reached a point where the newsletter has integrated itself into the very identity and function of the chapter. However, as the paper develops, we also need to find a permanent home for it so that past issues can be stored and accessed. This presents another problem, for our chapter is currently searching for a home on the Internet in order to create an archive where past issues can be catalogued and recalled. For this to happen, it is expedient that someone with sufficient experience be willing to maintain a homepage and keep it up to date. If not, past issues of our newspaper will become obscured; future issues will have no permanence. Other factors involve funds needed to maintain such a site and a member with a sense of dedication and competency.
As with all endeavors, survival depends upon whether or not newcomers are willing to carry on where others leave off. If Himeji JALT News is to become a permanent fixture of the chapter, it is important that it become the work of a group rather than an individual. For a paper to continue publication, it requires editors, proofreaders, reporters, and those who can help with the printing, advertising, and distribution. For its survival, the newsletter needs dedicated individuals who can breathe new life and ideas into it.
Hopefully JALT Central may provide a free link for all chapters who publish a newsletter (or offer this service for a fee deducted from a chapter's budget). This would not only encourage chapters to begin newsletters of their own but also provide a permanent incentive for them to continue this valuable activity. JALT could initiate a new feature at the annual conferences-- a special display for all chapters who publish a newspaper, an exhibition of these publications for all to consider seriously. This would be a further means of helping small chapters grow and all chapters to be informed of other chapters' activities.