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- MORE QUESTIONS FOR UCUGA
-
-
- Gaelyne Gasson:
-
- <<First of all, if a User Group joins
- UGUGA, does that mean it's news letter
- MUST become part of the Digest, or can
- the group continue to publish it's own
- newsletter?>>
-
-
- K. Dale Sidebottom:
-
- No. Yes.
-
-
- Gaelyne:
-
- <<In the situation above, would there
- be any advantage at all for the
- joining UCUGA?>>
-
- It all depends on the club's
- situation. Often, the club editor is
- tired of carrying the responsibilities
- all alone. UCUGA becomes a valued
- resource for helping him/her find
- substantive material to improve the
- club's own publication.
-
- If the club finds no problem
- publishing its own newsletter, then
- there might be little advantage to
- UCUGA, other than a cheap way to
- advertise itself across the Commodore
- world each and every month. ;-)
-
-
- Gaelyne:
-
- <<For user groups that are members, do
- you send them X number of copies of
- the digest, or do they receive just
- one copy that they have to reproduce
- on their own?>>
-
-
- Dale:
-
- Rolf answered this question,
- though not directly. For $25 a year,
- the club receives one issue a month.
- It can duplicate and distribute it to
- its members, or for $15/member/year,
- UCUGA will do that service for the
- club. It is as if the club buys
- individual memberships for its members
- in order to save itself the hassle of
- printing, mailing, etc.
-
- Frankly, $15 for 12 issues of 12
- pages each is a very, very fair deal.
- I doubt many can duplicate and mail
- the Digest for such a low price.
-
-
- Gaelyne:
-
- <<Some rumours/grumbles I've heard is
- that UCUGA is in direct competition
- with other User Groups that are
- struggling now as it is. How do you
- respond to this?>>
-
-
- Dale:
-
- Rolf answered this at length. I
- would only say that Rolf is president
- of his club; I am president of mine.
- Neither of us wants to do anything to
- hurt user groups at the grassroots
- level. UCUGA, as he and I have
- envisioned it, is intended to empower
- them instead!
-
-
- Gaelyne:
-
- <<For articles in the Digest, do you
- note what User Group the author
- belongs to, or does it just list the
- author only? (If you hadn't
- considered, I like knowing what group
- an author/article is from).>>
-
-
- Dale:
-
- We list the author only. I never
- even considered listing the author's
- user group...in part, perhaps, because
- many authors are members of more than
- one user group. I, for instance, am a
- member of LUCKI and the MailLink.
- Linda Tanner who is president of the
- MailLink group is also a member of
- LUCKI! :-/ It can get to be a little
- tricky, and most authors understand my
- desire to avoid needless hassles. If
- an author WANTS to list his/her club,
- we do intend to print it, however.
-
-
- Gaelyne:
-
- <<Now that I've seen two issues of the
- Digest, I only have two criticisms.>>
-
- <<The first is that the User Group
- information for the different member
- groups is in the middle of the Digest.
- Having this information in a
- consistent place - either the
- beginning or the back makes sense. I
- would prefer the beginning as nearly
- every newsletter from these groups has
- always had this information on the
- second page. I know they wouldn't fit
- there now, but right after would make
- sense.>>
-
- <<My other 'complaint' is continuing
- articles several pages from the
- original which makes it hard to
- follow.>>
-
-
- Dale:
-
- If the newsletter represents only
- one club, it is easy to put the
- information inside the cover. Since
- UCUGA lists several member clubs, the
- info follows the introductory page(s),
- which seems logical. If readers
- prefer, it could easily go at the end,
- but I thought by putting it right
- after the introductory page(s), it
- would be more likely that the reader
- would actually look the member clubs
- over before going on to the "meat" of
- the issue, the exciting articles! If
- inside the last page, I am guessing it
- would be easier to ignore. However, it
- is open to discussion and change. :-)
-
- [Dave's Intercession:] With multiple
- clubs, someone would certainly not be
- in the "best" position, whether front
- or back. According to church
- newsletter gurus, the front and back
- are the most important pages, and
- should be used for information for the
- greatest number of readers. In a local
- club newsletter, the Who, Where, and
- When would certainly be front or back
- page material. But UCUGA is has
- readers from various clubs. I will put
- my two cents worth in, though --
- Yellow Pages! for club specifics.
-
-
- Now back to Dale:
-
- As to "continuing" articles on
- other pages, I religiously endeavor to
- put information at the bottom of the
- pages telling the reader where to find
- the remainder of the article. The
- inconvenience of such "continued"
- articles is one of the realities of
- publishing. The majority of newspapers
- and magazines do this without apology.
- Currently, so do I.
-
-
- K. Dale Sidebottom
- Publishing Editor of UCUGA's
- Commodore Digest
-
- Gaelyne Gasson, Our Lady of Commodore
- Computing!
-
-