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By now most of you know we have a new editor, Chris Graillat. I have had the opportunity to meet and talk with her several times now. I cannot help wondering what an obviously personable, apparently intelligent, and well-spoken individual is doing as the prospective editor for our humble newsletter (these days, we no longer have a magazine). I got a few funny looks from Chris as I grilled her in the hope of establishing that she really knew what she was getting into. I had visions of Eric Butow out there plying possible victims with liquor in order to have a new editor by the July deadline. All of that was completely unfounded, of course. As it turned out, Chris was mostly sober when she agreed to be our new editor and it appears she has some notion of what she is in for.
Pulling tongue firmly out of cheek (or is that gently pulling foot out of mouth?), I am sure I speak for each and every member of the club in giving a warm welcome to Chris. Over the years we have depended on the editors of Sacra Blue for a quality product. We have never been let down. (Yes, Chris, the pressure is on.) Even at Sacra Blue’s worst (did we ever really have a “worst”?) I think we have one darn good publication by any standard. We look forward to Chris’s editorship and thank her immensely for the volunteer time Chris is about to give to our group. Eric looked long and hard for someone to succeed him before finally deciding on Chris. I’m sure you did well, Eric.
The May general meeting was sparked by some (somewhat) heated questions from members who are displeased, discontented, disappointed, disgruntled, and/or generally unhappy (am I making my point?) with the new eBlue supplement to Sacra Blue. My first reaction to this is that I am not completely happy with the eBlue situation either! Not much consolation, huh?
First of all, if eBlue does not work out for us, then we will simply dump eBlue. A more likely scenario is that eBlue will be modified to where it is a tolerable and workable situation for the membership. We are very early in the stages of making a product you can use and one that we can afford to offer the members. The old Sacra Blue magazine (with 60 to 80 or more pages) was costing more than $35 per member per month to produce. You don’t have to own a calculator to see there is little future for our group in that equation. With a bit of trial and error and a whole lot of hard work we will have a hybrid newsletter you can easily use. I hope we will be just as proud of the new Sacra Blue and eBlue as we were of the old Sacra Blue magazine. Please give it a few months.
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Some of the questions asked at the general meeting were ones that there are answers to but I was not smart enough at the time to recite them. For instance, the issue of using passwords for acquiring access into eBlue. Larry Clark proposes that we use “cookies” to help with the problem; a member would only be asked for a password once every three months (or so) for a password. The technology is there for this type of process and we just need to figure out how to use it. There are many bugs to work out yet. We have lots of talent helping us—not the least of which is our Webmaster, Dave Eden. Hang in there folks—it will get better.
Another issue was that of making some (or all) of eBlue accessible to the general public (non-members) on the Internet. The current plan is to allow the general public to view prior months of eBlue. Maybe the second or third month back. We’ll see. Many of these ideas have yet to be completely worked out.
Most of all, I do not want you to think that we do not listen to you—we do. The loudest voices, however, are the ones that come to the Steering Committee meetings every second Wednesday of the month. Even if you only make one or two meetings, it would sure be nice to see some of you there.
I have received little feedback on our e-mail discussion list. I see traffic on the discussion list is just starting to pick up. I hope that those of you using the discussion list are finding it helpful, enjoyable, educational, or (at least) something you read before you delete it! With a whopping 62 members, the number of subscribers is only a percentage of what I imagined it would be. Could it be that this is not the tool you want? Could it be that it is still too new? Could it be that you’re just waiting to see how it takes off before you jump in? Sometimes I just wonder. I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting. I’ll bring a flak jacket.
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Frank welcomes our new newsletter editor and discusses some Sacra Blue and eBlue issues raised by members at our last meeting.
