Title: “The Write Stuff”
Exhibitor: Rosemary Price Smart
Description: Once a month, a member from each extended family unit
writes a letter describing what is happening in their particular family. This letter is e-mailed to a family contact who gathers the letters, copies them 20 times, includes a title page that says, “The Prices Write,” and birthdays for that month, and then sends a set to each family. Benefits of the newsletter include keeping caught up on family events, providing information to all family members at one time, and sharing and supporting the good and bad times. The greatest benefit is that we continue to love each other from long distances. We like to vacation together, but that is infrequent. The letters are monthly.
How To’s: Setting Up the Newsletter
1. This newsletter is for an extended
family. Ours begins with my parents and
continues through children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Our family is scattered through several
states. We wanted some way to keep our
family close and in touch with each other on a regular basis.
2. A member from each family writes a letter
once a month and sends it via e-mail to one person in the family. In our family, that person is my mother-the
grandmother of the family. Then she
copies each letter and sends each family, through the mail, their set of
letters for the month. A friend’s family
newsletter is known as “the Gillette Gazette.”
We have found that we need a deadline every month and someone to remind
the tardy letter-writers. Another way
to send the letters could be via e-mail to each family. Simple.
3. You need a title for your family newsletter.
Make it a competition in your family.
Our family name is Price and our newsletter is called "The Prices
Write". There is a title page each month on our newsletter
that says "The Prices Write" and lists the birthdays, anniversaries,
and other important events for the month.
- Love.
Love abounds in our family already, but it is greatly enhanced by the
newsletter. Because we know what is
happening in each family, we feel closer and part of their world.
- Our patriarch. My father writes a theme letter every month for the benefit of
the whole family. Some of his themes
have been: how to budget and save your
money, advice to teenagers on dressing modestly, reading the scriptures
regularly, and one May he wrote how much he loved the mothers in our
family. This is valuable advice coming from
the head of our family. It is also the
perfect forum for him to write this advice.
- This is our family's journal. It is written down and recorded.
- Not only do we hear about the news in each
family, but we learn more about the person writing the letter. Each personality is so fun to know. We also get to know and love the new
members-those that marry into the family-when they write a letter.
- When someone is ill, that person is prayed for by a large group
of people who love them. Also, that ill
person's name is immediately placed on prayer rolls in several temples.
- Advice and help is lovingly given on many
important events such as birthday parties, showers, and wedding receptions by
those who have had experience.
- Recipes are shared. Advice on good books and movies are shared.
- We laugh a lot! We laugh at raising kids, funny things that happen during the
month, some even share jokes.
- When we see a niece or nephew or even one
of the great-grandchildren, we know what is happening in their life and can
converse about their life with them.
That brings us closer even though we may live far away.
- The greatest benefit of the newsletter is
the closeness and love we feel as a family.
We love to be together and even vacation together when we can, but
that is only occasionally. The monthly
letters keep us involved with one another.
That involvement increases our love for each other.