Is it really a major staffing burden to write up a one page summary of things that happened once a quarter? I understand that there is a bit of memory and prodding of others needed to pull the page together, but I don't understand how dropping that work is a major relief for the team.

Personally I'd say: If I was aware of better criteria / had a better feeling which "news" are news-worthy, a place to collect these news while the quarter is ongoing (instead of trying to remember once every 3 months what happened the last 3 months), and maybe a better shared understanding in which venues news worth to document are shared (cf T244396), then the writing up would feel "easier" (but I admit I have never been in charge of ultimately creating these newsletters).

In T327303#8559031, @Aklapper wrote:

a place to collect these news while the quarter is ongoing (instead of trying to remember once every 3 months what happened the last 3 months)

In the beginning we did that on the page itself. I don't know when that practice stopped? Maybe when it moved from Sarah R to the next maintainer?