I once wrote a complaint letter to a hotel and got a free weekend stay on my return visit. Once I wrote a complaint letter to a bleach company and got a replacement skirt for a co-worker who had her clothes ruined by an exploding bleach bottle. A well-written complaint letter can be a powerful tool.

I ran across a complaint letter recently that actually got an answer from Richard Branson himself. It’s highly amusing.

Tags: complaint letter, News

I think most people are familiar with Amnesty International’s great work for human rights via their letter writing campaigns. In America we have a long tradition of government official listening when we rise up and create a big voice for change. (Well, mostly.) But I have never been entirely convinced that this works in other countries where democracy is not at work.

Recently I ran across a great article entitled, “Does Letter Writing Really Work?” It briefly talks about the Urgent Action Network and had an inspiring video. It also has links to some of their success stories and a link where you can join to get notices on ways you can take action through letter writing.

Tags: Activism, campaigns, change, change through letters, politics

For all your crafty types, here is a fantastic tutorial on how to create a BEAUTIFUL 5-pocket portfolio that is great for many things. This one was designed with the theme of travel, but the pockets are such that you hold a lot of great correspondence items in it.

This would also make a great low-cost gift for a lucky pen pal!

Tags: Crafts, envelope book, how-to, portfolio, tutorial

Two pieces of news:

On the last postal news entry I mentioned the idea of the USPS reducing delivery service due to some of the cost constraints and significant losses they are suffering (to the tune of about $3 Billion).

Today there was a news story about the salary of the Postmaster General which was pretty astounding. Check out ABC’s version of the story on video. I’d like to hear your thoughts on that.

Second:

Christine, who is a part time rural mail carrier, said that February 14th to March 14th is an important time to send mail because this is the time all the mail is counted for benchmarking or performance (or something like that) for the year. You can read her remark in the comments section of that same entry. Go look and go send some mail!

Tags: News, post office, postal service

I’m sorry I didn’t find this in time for Valentine’s Day, but better late than never, I guess!

Check out this article on a handbook from the 12th century for how to write love letters. I think it would be fun to try some of these. Maybe if you start practicing now you will be ready for Valentine’s Day next year!

Tags: history, Love Letters

I was recently reading this post on the postal service rate increase coming up. Personally, I always hate to see it, but know it’s a necessary evil of the times.

However, this article in particular was really depressing. They said the effects of the rate increase are a “drop in the bucket”. I own my own business and it’s second nature to me to automatically think about how I could improve and optimize anything related to my business and this habit also slops over to other people’s businesses too. (And unfortunately results in me handing out a lot of unsolicited advice much to my husband’s dismay.)

So, I was thinking, what could be done to save the post office in this changing world of mail? There is an evolutionary turn happening in that industry and I thought about several things — first of all the future of letter writing if the post office is in serious trouble and second, what would I do if I was in this type of business? It’s not a simple fact of just changing some business practices… the real problem is that if you don’t have a crystal ball, how do you know how to evolve your business when your entire industry is flipping on its axis?

It’s a really tough question! Maybe we need to come up with some of our own ideas. We can march to Washington with our list and wait outside the Postmaster General’s office. It may take letter writers to save them.

What should they do? How about:

1. Celebrity endorsements like the “got milk?” campaign. Good grief, if drinking milk can be made to look cool, how hard could it be to make letter writing cool?
2. Create a more profitable division of the USPS such as a product division where you can have a lot of low wholesale cost, high profit merchandise. This has been done to a small extent, but not done nearly as well as it COULD be.
3. Have you noticed how well the U.S. Mint is doing? Take a clue from the Mint and capitalize on the needs and desires of collectors.
4. Hook the children early. A snail mailer’s club with quarterly or monthly newsletter. Get kids excited about sending letters and chances are it’s a love that will stay with them all their lives.
5. Encourage and promote mail art. Support mail artists and their showings. Marketing department needs to highlight more interesting things that go through the mail.
6. Grass roots campaigns. Utilize passionate local citizens to do your marketing for you. Enthusiastic volunteers can teach letter writing classes through local libraries — from nuts and bolts how-to classes to more creative and free-spirited methods of communicating by mail. This one has limitless possibilities and could be a good money maker since the only investment would be in coordinating the program. The cost on a local level is nearly nothing since it’s all done on a volunteer basis.
7. More school outreach, also on volunteer basis.
8. Form an unpaid advisory commission of passionate and enthusiastic and knowledgeable letter writers to meet 2-3 times per year to help plan and design low-cost, high return programs.

Okay, those are my ideas… please add your own in the comments section. If you will do your part and help brainstorm ideas I will put them all in a professional format and petition to Postmaster General to heed our call for change at the USPS. Let’s do it in time for the rate hike in May. Let’s get to work!

Tags: letter writing, marketing, post office, postal service, postmaster general, rate increase

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. I have a great way for you to celebrate!

Check out the Darwin Correspondence Project. This site has more than 5,000 of Darwin’s letters, including some from his childhood. Be sure to check out the one where he admits to only washing his feet once per month! (Okay, admittedly he was 12. Hopefully he outgrew that habit.)

Happy Birthday, Charlie!

Tags: birthday, charles darwin, letter collections

Natty at Get Scatty has a very simple video tutorial on how to make an easy, nearly-instant envelope that will work with just about any size card.

Try it out next time you need a quick “jacket” to dress your note in. You can do lots of variations with this — fancy papers and more. Get creative!

Tags: craft, creative, envelope

Donovan over at the Letter Writers Alliance wrote a great post about the language of stamps. Go check it out!

Did you also know there was a language of flowers?

If anyone ever tells you that you spend too much time online reading blogs, please point out to them how much useful information you get and how much smarter you’re becoming. (And then when their backs are turned, tape a “kick me” sign on them. Man, that’ll show them, won’t it??)

Tags: envelopes, floriography, language of flowers, language of stamps, secret messages, stamps, trivia, victoriana

Michelle Herrmann, an elementary school teacher, began a tradition of having her classes write letters to veterans of the Vietnam War.

In a news story from Beloit Daily News, Herrmann describes the value to the children and to the Veterans. The children get to learn about history, patriotism and giving. The Veterans learn that we have never forgotten the sacrifices they made by serving in an unpopular war.

Do you know of a teacher in school that might be inspired to start a project like this? Consider printing out the story and sharing it! Or if you are into philanthropy, consider donating to a project like this. Even with the cost of stamps on the rise it’s still a pretty cheap hobby!

[photo: horizontal integration]

Tags: kids, News, pen pal