[Artemisia] Newsletter Production Stipends

[Belladonna]

Maistreas Caointiarn, I certainly do not think you or a couple of your shire 
members are less members because you don't use the Web. But please hear me out.

First, I think you highlighted the wrong portion of my sentence about how people 
seek information. My supposition may still be big and incorrect, but the 
important part, I believe is *most of us.* I still maintain that it's likely the 
majority of SCA members nowadays use the Web to get information about events or 
a regnum. That does not make them more important members than those who don't, 
but I do think that it means that in today's society, the Kingdom meets its 
obligation to make information available to members by posting it on the Web or 
providing PDFs of the newsletters to subscribers. That's where I think the 
membership's obligation to acquire the information begins.

For people like you and your shire members, I feel like many options exist if 
we're willing to look into them. I agree that it's too much of a burden for some 
members to drive 20 miles one way to the library each month and print stuff out. 
However, local groups could pool their resources to ease this burden. The local 
Chronicler could assume some additional duties (especially since the most 
time-consuming portion of the Chronicler's duties would go away if they didn't 
have to produce printed newsletters) to ensure that members who don't have Web 
access are able to get printed materials for both the Kingdom and local 
newsletters each month. A different person each month could take on the driving 
and printing for all, with a money pool to cover the printing costs. 


The budget that baronies and shires dedicate to printing their own  newsletters 
could probably even be shifted to printing Sages and  local newsletters for 
members who want printed copies in addition to their e-copies and find it a 
large burden to print it themselves. This shift might even represent a savings 
to some local groups over budgeting for printed newsletters. Or the local 
newsletters could become free or much less expensive (BLS newsletters cost $15 
per year for printed and $3 per year for electronic, and there's no reason to 
charge for the electronic version other than that some people feel it's not fair 
to make them free if there's a charge for the printed version). I know not all 
shires produce newsletters, but many might still  be able to find money in their 
budgets to do this for members who need  it.

Perhaps there are even a couple of members in your shire who have Web access and 
own printers, to boot. Instead of budgeting for a person to travel to the 
library each month, perhaps the shire or barony could budget for paper and toner 
or cartridges and see if two or three of those members might be willing to print 
copies for the members who need one and for whom it's hard to print one. If 
three members had printers and each were willing to print three copies (in 
addition to their own if they want printed), that's nine other shire members who 
are covered.

It would mean a lot less wasted paper and, I believe, would be much less 
expensive overall to only print materials for those who truly want them and for 
whom it's a burden to do it themselves. Not to mention that if printed two-sided 
but not in a centerfold format, you wouldn't have to waste any effort or paper 
to get a total page count divisible by four.

Yes, I'm making suppositions. It would be necessary to poll people and do some 
math to figure out if I'm right. But I think it's a huge supposition to dismiss 
these ideas as wrong without that research, too.

There's another problem with newsletters these days. There are no submissions 
anymore, which makes it hard to produce a publication with much value. People 
don't want to submit and why should they? I'd be willing to bet that the Aerie's 
readership is, at the very least, equal to the Sage's readership. Members who 
have something to say can (and do) just post it here or to one of the group or 
specialized e-lists with very little effort, and they know that at least as many 
members will probably read it as would read something they had to work on and 
submit to a newsletter. Members with truly great article ideas might send them 
to TI (or create their own Websites). Almost all important announcements get 
cross-posted to various e-lists. Event announcements and calendars get posted on 
multiple e-lists and Websites. Not very much is left that you could actually 
call "news" in Kingdom and local "news"letters. As I stated before, I believe 
the only real new information is the monthly letters from crown, coronet, 
barons/baronesses, and Kingdom or local officers—at most, 3 to 5 pages worth of 
information.

I do believe that putting the event announcements in yet one more place in  an 
aggregated and easily printed format (the way it is in a newsletter) is great, 
but I only think it's great if reams of paper and hours of someone's time aren't 
wasted to print it for those who won't use or care about the printed copies or 
would be just as happy (or happier) with a PDF or other online format. I am at 
least one person who'd rather just get a PDF or otherwise access it online and 
print the pieces I want. I know of at least one other member in the Kingdom that 
a printed Sage is mostly wasted on every month. That's at least two copies that 
are being needlessly printed every month. I am again supposing, but I'll bet 
there are more.

Oh, by the way, if we do away with printed newsletters, even storing the 
required newsletter archives becomes a question of burning a few CDs to stick in 
a corner of a group's storage, buying a few USB sticks or portable drives, or 
having the group own some online storage. Imagine how many newsletters we can 
archive on a single 500GB portable drive, and think how much easier it would be 
to find an archived issue you were looking for. I don't know how the Kingdom 
archive is stored, but Loch Salann's archive consists of an unsorted box of 
magazines that moves to the new Chronicler's home every couple of years.

Anyway, I apologize for soapboxing (and at length). I just really believe it's 
time to rethink how we look at newsletters. And since a change is being forced 
upon us, anyway, I wanted to put the idea out there that it just might be a 
positive change.


Belladonna








________________________________
From: Caointiarn <caointiarn1 at bresnan.net>
To: Kingdom of Artemisia mailing list <artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org>
Sent: Sat, February 12, 2011 10:47:49 AM
Subject: Re: [Artemisia] Newsletter Production Stipends

Belladonna wrote:
> I don't mean to say that our newsletters are completely without value.  <> more 
>than 50% of the book, dedicated to information that is easily available 
>

                                     ** if** 

>you have an Internet account, doesn't need to be read and savored like a 
>magazine or book, and for most of us, **probably **  more likely sought out on 
>the >Web, anyway. <    Belladonna


That's 2  very big suppositions there.    I have an internet account,  but I 
would rather have a hardcopy to have with me.  I don't always have access to a 
computer. I will admit I am barely literate in my computer use.   I read the 
Kingdom newsletter & Shire newsletter cover to cover each month.   I keep & 
re-copy out directions to events from my monthly  _Sage Advice_.  


For a couple of my Shire members,  going to the Public Library, 20 miles away 
one way  and then print out what is important is  too costly on their church 
mouse budgets.   But they do manage to keep their  memberships current.   Does 
not using the WWW make them or me  less a member?  

I think you assumed  too much.
Maistreas Caointiarn
Bronzehelm