[quote=&quot;Andy&quot;:1sauhccf]My opinion on this is probably in the minority, but I would like to see what ALL the chapters are doing. The editor has a travel expense allotment in the budget, I would prefer to see this used to go to chapter events, not going to Missouri City, TX, to attend a seminar, designed to educate the editor. Since this position is paid, the editor should cover their own education.
[/quote:1sauhccf]

Hey Andy, 

We did go to the seminar in Missouri City, TX, but it was not designed to educate just us. There were 16 other magazines represented there, all customers of McMillen Communications. The intent of the seminar was to get all of these magazines' representatives together to meet with the other half of the equation - the printers, promotional companies, the USPS, etc to discuss ways to increase circulation.

We originally didn't feel it was a good idea to go to this seminar with no more experience than we had at the time. (Almost none!) These were professionals that didn't need us holding them back. But after talking with a couple of people in the business, and with the support and encouragement of the board, we decided to go. There was no charge for the seminar itself, and most of the meals were included with the seminar, and the rest we paid for out of our own pocket. The club re-imbursed us for our airplane tickets, car rental, and hotel stay. 

When the seminar was all said and done, I was glad we went. Not only did we get 'educated', but we made a lot of good contacts in the business.

As to going to every chapter's event,  I personally don't think this is the best way to spend the clubs money. There are people in each chapter (I am a member of about half of the chapters, and keep adding more, so I know what their newsletters look like) that are capable of writing up something about what their chapter is doing. Remember, we are [u:1sauhccf][i:1sauhccf]editors[/i:1sauhccf][/u:1sauhccf], which means we are responsible for deciding what goes into the magazine. That doesn't mean we have to write every word that goes into it. Our contract does say that we will write artciles as needed, but nowhere in it does it say that we have to write it all.  It also says that we will pay our own way to the HPOCA Summer and Winter shows, and all board meetings, but if the board wants us to represent the club anywhere else, we will need to be re-imbursed for our travel expenses. The great thing about a contract is that as long as both sides agree to what is in the contract, you can put anything legal in it. We are getting less than half of what Sherry did for our position as editor, so it wouldn't take very long for what we do make to be eaten up by travel expenses. We plan on going to several shows this summer, and so far, we plan on footing the bill for all of them.

On to the other complaints.
First the amount of content. We ran out of space. We even had to pull 2 articles.  The reason being we had a lot of paid advertisers. I think it would be a bad idea to tell a paying advertiser that we won't take their ad. And if you think we should limit new advertisers, that would have eliminated Oliver Heritage's ad. Sherry contacted us in plenty of time, paid in advance, and had the art work already done.  I wasn't going to turn her down. 
We are currently looking into 2 different approaches to remedy this problem. One is to raise the advertising rates. We have been told by 6 different advertisers that our rates are cheap. Now when they are telling you that, it's good sign that it's time to raise the rates. I'm sure we will loose a couple of advertisers, and some may decrease the size of their ads, creating more space.
The other is to add more pages. Sherry said she was looking into this at that fateful meeting in November, for the same reasons. She didn't want to have to turn away paying advertisers, and was running out of room for content. We are working with Driveline Publications as to what the cost would be so we can present it to the board at the next meeting. 
I doubt either of these options will be implemented until the first issue of 2005.


Now for the criticism. We want to know what everybody thinks, good or bad. But instead of saying " this is all fluff and no substance" and " terrible" how about, "I would like to see more aritcles and less advertising." or " I would have liked to have seen more about the tractor on the cover". You are entitled to your opinions. And I am entitled to ignore them when you present them the way you do. 
We have paid attention to the criticisms of the past. You din't like the amount of literature scans. They are basically none in this issue. You didn't like all of the address change notices, there is only one this time. You wanted more letters to the editor, well, we can only print what we get. We have gotten a couple that were great, but included the line, please do not use this in the magazine. We got a couple that were bad, but also said not to place them in the magazine. We just received one from a gentleman from Canada that was unhappy to find out Sherry had been fired, and we plan on using that one. And the amount of regular letters to the editor has started to pick up, but it is not nearly as many as we thought there would be. You wanted Tech articles, and there is one in this issue. There also will be one or 2 in the next issue.
So please, choose you words wisely, and you might get a better response.