Rother District Council

Rother District Council recognises the importance of good communication. It raises awareness of our services and means that our residents, stakeholders, councillors and staff are well informed.

We know that when people are better informed, they feel more satisfied with the Council.

As part of our commitment to keeping our audiences informed, Rother produces two 'external' publications. Rother Views is our residents' magazine and is delivered to just under 45,000 households across the district, keeping people up-to-date with information about our services and Council achievements. The Members' Bulletin is an e-zine produced to provide news and information to Rother District and parish councillors.

We welcome submissions for both publications, so here are some useful guidelines for contributors to follow;

• Be aware who you are trying to reach – do you want the article to be read by residents or council members / parish councillors? If it's the former, send it to Rother Views. For the latter, you want the Members' Bulletin. Sometimes a story or piece of information might be suitable for both publications.

• Make it relevant to your target audience. Will people care about what you are saying? Angle the information in a way that will catch people's interest. Make sure you write the piece in a way that your audience will understand – don't use technical language or local government terms if the people you are writing for won't know what they mean.

• Think pictures. As the saying goes, they are worth a thousand words. A good image can make an article come to life, so please provide a useable picture if you have one. Please send your pictures through as JPG files separate to your article – this will make life much easier when it comes to uploading your article to the web.

• Don't make it too long. Articles can vary in length from a few sentences to a couple of pages. It's useful to have pieces of different sizes for design purposes. However, if you get beyond 500 words, alarm bells should start ringing – such an article becomes difficult to publish and probably won't be read anyway.

• Meet deadlines. We can advise you what the deadlines are for both Views and the Bulletin, we also send out reminders. If you don't mind which edition your information appears in, things are easy, so just send it through. However, while we will do our best to include things at short notice, it can't always be guaranteed. The earlier the better is a good general rule.

• Perform a grammar and spell check. We'll happily tidy up copy for you and even assist with writing if necessary. What we don't want to do is spend lots of time correcting spelling and grammatical errors that could easily have been changed by the writer.

• Also note that short, clear sentences tend to be best for magazines and online publications. Don't worry too much though – the team will always help to make sure your writing is of a standard that can be published.

• The editor's decision is final. While we will always do our best to accommodate your article, on some rare occasions we might ask you to re-write it, cut it down or there just won't be space. Please don't take it personally – there's usually a good reason.

To submit articles for Rother Views please email daniel.collins@rother.gov.uk

To submit an article for the Members' Bulletin please email alison.barnes@rother.gov.uk

For further advice, contact the communications team.

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