Opinions, musings, ideas, pearls of wisdom
Handing Over the Reins
By Kent Hull
Handing Over the Reins
By Kent Hull
Editing the Newsletter for the last two years has occasionally been quite challenging but mostly very enjoyable. It's been deeply satisfying to be able to apply incidental professional skills developed over many years for the benefit of you who are very important to me, the members of this fishing (and conservation) club. My sincerest thanks to those who made most of it enjoyable, and to those who expressed their appreciation for the results. Most thanks of all go to Pat Steele who did a miraculous job of assembling everything she got and fitting it into a coherent, readable and attractive publication, then labored hard to get the result printed, addressed and mailed - and finally translated everything and uploaded it to the Club web site.
Please give John Pennington and Pete Thomas the support and respect they deserve while doing this job. They're now the Editors, responsible for Newsletter content, so of course they must edit, fitting everything into the reduced number of pages now available, while making it easy for you to get the information you need. If you wonder why some of the words you contribute have been changed or deleted, bear in mind that what the reader reads, gets, and finds interesting is far more important to the usefulness of the Newsletter than publishing exactly what you wrote. This is especially true when the writing is excessively long, hard to read and understand, is missing essential facts or has them wrong, or includes material irrelevant to Member interest. If the editors have to ask you to remove excess or irrelevant portions or write them more clearly, work with them to communicate the gist of what you want to say in the available space. They will be doing their best to keep ours the best club newsletter around, and will need all the help you can give them.
For any of you who have some knack for proofreading and making sure things are clear and easily readable, please consider taking a turn as Newsletter Editor. I'll bet John and Pete will be looking for a successor in a few years.
Is there anyone out there with rudimentary skills in page layout, and someone with a little knowledge of web site maintenance? The Newsletter (and the club web site) would be lost without Pat. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect Pat to be available twelve months a year, forever, without a break. Could you pinch hit for Pat if she needed it? We're not asking for someone to do Pat's job. We're just asking for someone who could get something printed and mailed, if needed, and someone who could insert just enough HTML to get the print files onto the web site. Talk to Pat if you think you could help.