Introducing the MCMG Communications Style Guide

By MG Intern Imane Zouhar

The Communications branch of the Montgomery County Master Gardeners (MCMG) board oversees three committees responsible for The Seed newsletter, Social Events & Intern Hospitality, and Public Relations. With some of us stepping into our roles for the first time and others already well-established, we got together for coffee and a chat back in February to get to know one another. We discussed our positions and the general directions we’d like to take for the organization’s communications. One theme that came up was streamlining and standardizing MCMG’s communication channels, both internal and external.

As MGs, you’re no doubt familiar with the many and varied events we put together throughout the year. These are understandably preceded by numerous announcements, both on platforms available to us as MGs and those intended for the public. Alongside other non-event updates, this can sometimes feel confusing or overwhelming. A central goal of the current Communications team is to create a more systematic and digestible way of sharing and finding this information.

As a step toward that goal, MG Alison Edwards, editor of The Seed, has coordinated an effort to prepare a style guide for general MCMG communications. The guide is intended as an easy reference for MGs looking to share program-related information, helping us to create a more cohesive “look” for the organization’s public-facing announcements, social media posts, and presentations. To bring it together, MG Betsy Wooster has been hard at work distilling and adapting the existing style guide for The Seed, with input from members of the Communications team.

The result of two months of back-and-forth, we hope, is a set of concise and relevant guidelines that will become a go-to reference for many of you. It includes directions on event announcements, photo credits, MG terminology, and more. Please check out the MCMG Style Guide—we’d love to hear your thoughts! For future reference, you can also find the style guide on the MCMG website, under Policies and Guidelines for MCMG MGs.