Mass Mailings

When I was in high school, my younger sister and myself, along with some other teenagers in our parish, helped a parish priest do a 500 plus piece mailing to the diocesan priests' senate. We learned from him and by trial and error how to organize a stuffing, sealing and mailing operation.

The information has stayed with me, and more than 16 years ago, I was involved in helping to organize mailings of some 3000 pieces for professional workshops. When we assembled to do the mailing part, I was able to "marshall the troops" and help organize so the effort went smoothly.  I did not think anything of it. It was a skill I had learned years ago, and recalled easily.

Now, I do the monthly mailings for the local NASW branch.  Much of it is done on computer, and that was another skill I brought to doing mass mailings: learning to use the computer tools to be most efficient. I have revised the system  a couple of times, as my computer skills have advanced.

But, we have a lot of snail mail addresses only for social workers and for the monthly meetings and a couple of other times a year, we need to contact them.  A colleague and I have been doing this regularly, and pretty much have it down to a system.

Tonight, I had to work on a mailing for an NASW annual event.  Most of it could be done by email, but again, some of our members have not furnished their email addresses to us, or do not have email.  So, I had to do some printing of addresses on envelopes.  It did not take that long.

My colleagues frequently thank me for the work that I do, and that is gratifying. But I like playing on the computer, and I do not think of it as work.  Sometimes, it is time consuming. But I enjoy it. I think my colleagues give me more credit than I deserve, because organizing mailings is not that hard.