The “Bulletins” are a series of short news emails, numbered to reflect the Newsletter which they follow. The plan is for them to be more frequent than the full Newsletters, and therefore for them to bring news items in a more timely manner.

These bulletins will not usually be printed and sent to members by post, but edited copies of them will appear on the web site and in the next Newsletter, so that there will continue to be a permanent record of the news items, which will also thereby be available in due course to members who do not use email and receive printed copies of the newsletters. These “preserved” copies will be edited before appearing on the web site or in Newsletters (which also go on the Web) to remove, update or summarise out-of-date or sensitive material, such as any postal addresses and phone numbers which might appear in, say, members’ requests or announcements.

The Bulletins are sent by email to members and are not on the web-site, so this is only a list which might be useful to check whether you have received them. Their contents, where still relevant and possibly with some details redacted, will appear in appropriate parts of the web site.

By reducing the editorial effort required to produce a Bulletin, they should be more frequent and therefore better able to keep members informed of matters which are more time-sensitive, such as the Bulb & Seed Exchanges for example.

There is also a concern that a few members who prefer to receive our Newsletters attached to emails might miss them if their email provider is likely to block emails with large attachments. If this happens, those members will be alerted to the missing Newsletter by the arrival of the following Bulletin, so they can take steps to receive it, typically by downloading it from our web site.

• Both will be sent to members who have email addresses. The Newsletter, but not bulletins, will be posted to those who do not have email.
• The Newsletter will be longer and less frequent than the Bulletins.
• Newsletters will contain photos and will be either attached to, or linked from, emails sent to users.
• Bulletins will normally contain only text in the body of the email, not attachments (and occasionally images which are linked like the SABG logo, not embedded), with a hopefully reduced risk of being blocked by over-zealous email providers.
• The SABG Bulletin has no similarity to or connection with the excellent colour-printed IBSA Bulletin.