Communication involves writing smarter

Read all about it! Our 2005 Annual Report , Influencing health care policy outcomes in arthritis treatment and care, is hot off CAPA's virtual presses! It was a busy and successful year, and you helped make it happen. Thank you.

Spring is more than waiting for the first flower to poke its head above ground – or filling out income tax forms. Spring is CAPA budget time. CAPA is an advocacy only organization. We don't fund raise, and gratefully acknowledge The Arthritis Society as our sole financial support. From our inception in the fall of 2001, we have believed we have an obligation to provide our information materials to members in both official languages. To try to make this a reality, we have allocated 20% of our proposed operating budget for 2006-07 to translation services. Translation is expensive - 25 to 35 cents a word, depending on the material. However, budget allocation alone will not get the job done. We will also need to limit the length of future issues of CAPA Voices, and the number and length of our other information materials will be affected too. Communication is important to what we do and we greatly regret having to do this. We'll try to 'write smarter' to compensate.

We want to hear from you. We appreciate and take seriously your input and feedback for all arthritis issues and every article that appear in CAPA Voices. CAPA is our organization and we need your opinions to do the best we possibly can for Canadians with arthritis. For this reason, we are establishing a Letters to the Editor column beginning in the next Voices.