One issue of a group's news as a page: a lead story, short items, dates and who wrote it.
Here is a finished issue to open: The Cinder Path, from a made-up neighborhood association. One limit first: a page doesn't send itself or keep a list of subscribers. You still email or text the link to your own list.
Who it's for
Whoever ends up writing the news for a group of 30 to 500 people: a neighborhood association, a climbing gym, a parent council, a forty-person company. You already have the addresses or the group chat, and you'd like the month's news to look like a publication instead of a long email.
If you need a sign-up box, an unsubscribe link or a count of who opened it, use an email service.
What a good one contains
- A masthead with a name, a number and a date. "No. 47" says there were 46 before it. The name means something locally: the cinder path is the 0.4-mile walk the lead story is about.
- One lead story. Pick the news that changes somebody's week. The sample gives it a headline, a two-sentence summary and about 265 words.
- Named people, quoted. The chair on three budget hearings, a neighbor who wants to keep seeing the stars from his kitchen.
- Short items whose headlines carry the news. "The shovel squad needs eight more" works for a reader who skips the paragraph under it.
- Dates in a list of their own. Seven entries, each with its weekday. People come back for this list, so the leaf pickups and the tool library's reopening appear here as well as in their stories.
- Money, if the group has any. Six rows show where $2,130 of dues went.
- A correction and something small. Last month's bake sale figure is fixed in three sentences, and a found mitten gets one. Items like these give an issue its voice.
- Who writes it, and how to send news. The page has no form, so the sample says to reply to the message the link came in, and prints the deadline for the next issue.
Issue 48 and after
Settle the fixed parts once: the masthead, the order of the sections and the day it goes out. After that you bring only the notes.
Publish every issue as its own page, so last month's link still opens last month's news. Replace a page only to fix a mistake, then own up in the next issue the way the sample does.
Check every weekday against a calendar before you send. "Tuesday, December 9" would fill the hall on the wrong night, because December 9, 2026 is a Wednesday.
How to send it
As an open link. An issue is meant to be forwarded to the neighbor who isn't on your list yet. Leave out anything you wouldn't pin to a notice board.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
