Past newsletters

Newsletter formats

The newsletter is published monthly in two formats (formerly three formats):

Printed newsletter

an 8-page, black-and-white printed newsletter that's mailed to members. It has few photos and, of course, no links. The major benefit is it requires no computer.

PDF newsletter

This is no longer being distributed. The PDF was a color version of the printed newsletter that was emailed to members in the past. It had some photos, and links to email addresses and websites. It was difficult to read on small-screen phones and tablets. It was replaced by the online newsletter.

Onine newsletter

a webpage version that has more content, more and larger photos, sound, and more. It is easy to read regardless of whether you're using a computer, tablet, phone, and likely any future device. Click or tap the buttons above to see these newsletters.

Since this newsletter is “on the Internet”, we don't want personal information of members available for anyone to see. The newsletter is designed so the email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses of those mentioned in the newsletter are not normally displayed. Members can click or tap a name (these names are in green text) and you'll be prompted to enter a username and password before the information is displayed. If you're a member, you'll received the username and password in the email that announces the newsletter every month.

Member computers

These are the numbers of computers and devices that members use to read the February 2025 newsletter. Almost half of the members read the newsletter on small screen devices: iPhones and Android phones. The remainder read the newsletter on larger screens such as tablets and desktop computers.

Why a webpage?

NWC members have received paper newsletters printed on 8½ X 11 inch paper for years. Then, they started receiving by email an electronic copy of that newsletter in a format named Portable Document Format, abbreviated PDF. The PDF is an exact duplicate of the printed newsletter. Words appear on the page in the same place. When you try to read the PDF on your phone, the text is too small to read, and the images are small as well. Here's a screen shot of a PDF newsletter on a smartphone screen:

You can "pinch" the display to make the text larger, but then much of the text is off-screen, so you have to move the text around so you can read complete sentences.

Those fortunate to have a tablet or computer with larger screens have an easier time of it. The size of the text varies with the device's screen size.

The benefit of a webpage format is the text and graphics adapt to the screen size. Here's a screen shot of the webpage newsletter displayed on a smartphone:

The text on the screen is not small because the screen is small—it's easily readable regardless of the screen size. The browser does this by moving text that would disapper off the right edge of the screen to the next line. This is called text wrapping.

Words in a sentence can be wrapped to the next line and we have little trouble understanding what the sentence is telling us. But images are different. If the image is too wide for the screen, we can't break it in pieces and move pieces below one another. But a webpage designer can choose appropriate images for given screen sizes. For example, on a large screen device, you might see a group of several people, while someone else using a smaller screen device sees an image of fewer people who are the subjects of the surrounding text.

The webpage format that automatically adapts to screen sizes is considered the better way of communicating information to people who use a variety of devices.

Where is the online newsletter?

The NWC online newsletter is a webpage located on a secure web server in San Francisco. When you view it with your computer, tablet, or phone, your device's web browser fetches the webpage file from that San Francisco^* server and displays it to your screen.

When the newsletter is being created for the next month, it exists as a single file located on the San Francisco web server. It is NOT a file that we pass around via email like we do with spreadsheets. As we add content to the newsletter, that content (text, graphics, sound, etc.) is added to the webpage file on the web server. When we edit newsletter text, we're editing that single file.

* The web server we use will likely change in the future, and the new one might be in New York or Chicago. Its location does not affect your ability to read the newsletter.