By J.A. Buchholz

LAKELAND — Florida Conference Communications Director Michael Wacht said Dec. 19 will be the last issue of the Florida Annual Conference Edition of the United Methodist Review. He said the biweekly newspaper will become an electronic news service to reach more readers and save thousands of dollars in newspaper print, postage and staffing resources.

“This is something we’ve been talking about for a while,” Wacht said. “We were talking about doing a printed and electronic edition and then transitioned to just an electronic product. The budget situation challenged us to speed up the timetable.”

Subscribers to the news service will receive the same kind of news that has been provided through the printed paper, but in a different format. Articles will be e-mailed to subscribers and posted to a separate Web site on a daily basis at no charge. Readers will be able to print articles and photographs from the Web site, and postings will be easier to format for inclusion in church and district newsletters. Each article will be categorized to correspond with a ministry or area of the conference and will include links to news sources that provide national and international news typically included in the printed paper.

Churches are encouraged to print the articles and file them in a binder provided by the conference communications office so they can be available to members without Internet access.

In addition to being free of charge to subscribers, the electronic version, called e-Review Florida United Methodist News Service, will save the conference thousands of dollars— savings that could not have come at a better time.

The conference had spent nearly $640,000 more than it received through the end of September, according to Dr. Randy Casey-Rutland, the Florida Conference’s treasurer. He said the Conference Council on Finance & Administration (CF&A) is using a small amount of accumulated undesignated funds from previous years to stay afloat.

Wacht said the cost of publishing and mailing the Review in 2004 would be about $80,000, up nearly $6,000 more than in 2003. He attributed the escalating amount to the increasing cost of paper, publishing and mailing.

“We will still have the same associated costs of staff the conference is already paying,” Wacht said. “Essentially we’re reducing the communications budget, which is part of the Council on Ministries. It will free up a staff person between 10 and 12 hours each issue to focus their time on other [conference] initiatives.”

Further prompting the switch is having less than 7,000 subscribers, compared to more than 340,000 conference members, Wacht said.

“What this does is allow us to reach more people,” he said. “People can forward the news on to other church members, friends, family, coworkers and conferences. It has the potential to reach so many people…It’s a better way to communicate.”

The Rev. Dr. Anne Burkholder, director of Connectional Ministries for the conference, supports the idea as a better, more efficient way to communicate with members.

“I think it’s worth making changes for greater access to get information out about the church,” Burkholder said. “We can reach a larger amount of people in a timely fashion.

“We are sensitive to people who wish to hold something in their hands, and that’s why we’re asking churches to include articles in their newsletters or print copies. Sharing information is one means for people to live out their faith.”

Burkholder said the conference must change to better relate to its members.

“Today, especially, in a time when the national media interprets church life and denominational life in secular ways, it is much more important to reach more people with the news and information about what’s going on in the church,” she said. “Working through e-mail will also allow us a broader access for reaching members during matters of urgency, which is crucial in this world we live in.”