Make Monday a Day On

Much more than mere mail

                   National Letter Writing Week: January 9 - 16, 2011

And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart.
~W.H. Auden

The never-ending emails, spam, forwarded hoaxes and bad jokes, advertising, ecards, texts, tweets, status updates from "friends": nowadays, we are surrounded by the written word. A commodity that has lost its value in abundance, these mostly meaningless messages that we allow to accompany us everywhere are oh-so-easily deleted, trashed, forgotten or ignored.

But a letter written by hand, created just for you, is something else. Notice how you open it with care, read every word, stash it safely away with other letters and pictures and important documents in your treasure box.

If you had to get out of the house in a rush, that box would be the first thing that you would grab on your way out the door.

Why don't you take just a little bit of time this week to give someone else this special gift? Your slow-cooked letter could be the comfort correspondence that person needs.

Okay, you want to do it, but don't know where to start? Here are a few ideas:

1) Write and send a letter to a young person. Kids as young as three get excited about receiving mail. Enclose blank stationary and a SASE to encourage a response. Commemorative stamps or the child's picture on the stamps will really capture his or her attention.

2) On the other end of the spectrum, write to an elderly person. Many older people feel isolated and alone. Your letter doesn't necessarily have to be written to someone that you know: you can contact a local nursing facility or government agency for the aging.

3) Write your sweetheart an old-fashioned love letter. You can look at this as an opportunity to warm things up for Valentine’s Day, which is just around the corner.

4) Write to the boss of someone in the service industry with whom you regularly interact. Has a grocery clerk or waitress or childcare assistant gone out of their way to make your life easier? Return the favor by making them feel recognized and appreciated.

5) Write to somebody in your life who may not have heard from you in a while who has ended up being important to you: a former teacher, a mentor, a friend, etc.  Tell them why you're writing. Send a recent picture (you have permission to use the internet to find their current addresses).

6) Write to The President.  President Obama responds himself to a portion of the letters that he receives.  His mailing address is The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500.

7) Write to a deployed soldier. If you don't know any soldiers or don't know what to write about, click here.

8) If you'll been disappointed in a purchased product lately, sit down and write a letter to the company.  Letters received via the mail are often taken much more seriously by businesses than email, and you might be pleasantly suprised by their response.

9) Write a letter to your future self. This can be for you 10, 20, 30, even 50 years in the future. Tell yourself what your goals, dreams, and wishes. Send it to yourself in the mail, and don't open it until you have become the recipient.

Hopefully, that got the creative juices in your ink pen flowing. Now stop reading and get writing (and boost revenue, too)!

Driving on Snow and Ice: 10 Safety Tips

Here in Alabama, we were hit last night with the biggest snow storm in 20 years. Since most of us aren't used to driving under these conditions, it might help everyone to review these tips for driving in this icy weather.

From Edmonds.com:

1. Get a grip. To have adequate snow traction, a tire requires at least 6/32-inch deep tread, according to The Tire Rack. (New passenger-car tires usually have 10/32-inch of tread.) Ultrahigh-performance "summer" tires have little or no grip in snow. Even "all-season" tires don't necessarily have great snow traction: Some do, some don't. If you live where the roads are regularly covered with snow, use snow tires (sometimes called "winter tires" by tiremakers). They have a "snowflake on the mountain" symbol on the sidewall, meaning they meet a tire-industry standard for snow traction.
2. Make sure you can see. Replace windshield wiper blades. Clean the inside of your windows thoroughly. Apply a water-shedding material (such as Rain-X) to the outside of all windows, including the mirrors. Make sure your windshield washer system works and is full of an anti-icing fluid. Drain older fluid by running the washers until new fluid appears: Switching fluid colors makes this easy.
3. Run the air-conditioner. In order to remove condensation and frost from the interior of windows, engage your air-conditioner and select the fresh air option: It's fine to set the temperature on "hot." Many cars automatically do this when you choose the defrost setting.

To read the rest of the list, click here. 

And the winner is...

Back in November, Postmarks asked that you place your vote for best stamp of 2010 in Beyond the Perf's contest. There were so many great ones last year that it was hard to decide, but the winner is ...

The Adopt-A-Shelter-Pet Stamps

The stamps were a huge hit with customers, too. So far, they have purchased 13.4 million panes, which has generated more than $117 million in revenue. 

Last year in Alabama, there were two stamps for which post offices state wide conducted events: the Adopt-A-Shelter-Pet stamps and the Breast Cancer Awareness stamps, and sales were phenominal for both. The stamps' popularity combined with a decisive effort to publicize them is what lead to their success.

Postmarks challenges every employee to glance over the upcoming stamp releases for 2011. Which ones catch YOUR eye, relate to something in your community, make YOU react with excitement?

We want to hear your ideas about what your offices might be able to do to generate a buzz. We will help any office plan events, request and design pictorial postmarks, design commemorative envelopes (when warranted), and of course with publicity.

United Alabama USPS employees generously give to United Way

The Fall 2010 Combined Federal Campaign of Central Alabama Awards Ceremony was held on December 14, 2010, where the Alabama District CFC team accepted an award on behalf of all Alabama Postal participants for being named a Silver Certificate Agency

Pictured are members of the team who by now are probably familiar faces to many of us. Left to right: Joane Jemison, Rhonda Bufford, Christopher Ritchey, Valerie Johnson, and Kathy Martin-Armstead.

In a year when the state of the economy was rough on all of us, this team did a fantastic job of motivating  67% of all Alabama USPS employees to contribute to their choice of United Way charities. We not only met the 2010 goal for giving but exceeded it by pledging $374, 568.22.

17 Free Days at National Parks

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today the 17 fee-free days at all US National Parks during 2011.

The days are the weekend of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (January 15-17), National Park Week (April 16-24), the first day of summer (June 21), National Public Lands Day (September 24), and the weekend of Veterans Day (November 11-13).

Pictured above are the National Parks in Alabama. There are 394 parks throughout the country.  If you would like to find parks in other states or learn more about any of the facilities, visit the Find a Park  online locator on the National Park Service website.

Many national park concessions will also offer discounts on fee free days for food, lodging, tours, and souvenirs. You can learn more by clicking here.

Dedication to Service