Getting volunteers or employees in far flung offices, particularly ones that do not have a news background, to adhere to style conventions is a long, long road. But it can be done. You just have to keep educating your universe.
At the Diocese of Southwest Florida, we have worked hard to try to have some sort of consistency in our usage, but with 78 parish offices and hundreds of volunteers, it can’t always be done.
Part of the booklet are Social Media Guidelines for the Diocese of Southwest Florida. The impetus for this document came from Bishop Dabney Smith, who tasked a volunteer committee to review other diocesan policy documents regarding social media, and then come up with a set of recommendations of our own.
The book was revised completely in 2019 as a complete brand guideline for Episcopal Churches. The complete Diocesan Stylebook is available HERE.
It includes:
- A style guide of word usage in the Diocese, including forms of address in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. We hope it can be used by those doing weekly parish bulletins.
- Notes on website formatting for webmasters in our Diocese
- A guide to submitting news to the Diocese
- Social Media Guidelines including best practices on using social media at your parish or ministry group.
- A section on titles and forms of address in The Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.