quo quadis bulletin

Stefan Burger, 67227 Frankenthal (Pfalz)

Reading the last edition of the Bulletin I remarked that the articles and contributions taken from former editions of the Bulletin or other Square Dance magazines increased distinctly. On the one hand it is good to read again an old article, to see the problems dominating our Square Dance world existed 20 or 30 years ago. But in my opinion there is the question why the frequency recently increased remarkably.

The result for me is that there are not enough articles that can or may be published. Why is it so? Are the dancers no longer article writers as 20 or 30 years before? I don’t think so, but our period has changed and is quicker and more short-lived now. Contributions and readers’ letters for daily newspapers, specially for online editions, are increasing constantly, blogs (electronic diaries) are springing up in masses, the number of emails, SMS and twitter news is increasing month by month ..... We are writing certainly as much, if not more, as 20 or 30 years ago. But who is writing still today a reader’s letter of which the deadline is in about 4 weeks and the publication still 2 to 4 weeks later? Are the information of this reader letter still relevant? I think we should put the question how far the topical Bulletin still fulfills our today’s claims, if an “update” of this Bulletin would be necessary. If I look at the information policy of our municipality, it is offering a “citizen’s letter” that is published twice a month and is comfortably sent to the registered e-mail address as a pdf file and at the same time shown as online version, also for download, on their website. The advantage of this “citizen’s letter” is clear. The municipality saves costs for printing and dispatch (distribution) and is able to offer relative easily topical news to the town citizens. Why not apply this concept also to our Bulletin? The following could be considered: A reduction of the print edition to twice per year, together with the Club Directory, other additional editions electronically (by e-mail and/or website) to the members.

The advantage for us would be:

1. A reduction of print and dispatch costs, by this also a reduction of the Bulletin costs in general.
   
   
2. The contents of the print edition would
   be reduced to the most necessary information (right now 1/3 information of the association, 1/3 flyers and advertisements and 1/3 old repeating articles of  the last 30 years).
   
   
3. It is possible for the online edition to show the flyers of the next events e.g. in colour, and last but not least
   
   
4. to communicate quickly topical information (by e-mail and on the website) to the members.

We should think about it.

Stefan Burger

Transl.: Hartmut Heiber

Editor: this is the personal view of the author, but not opinion of Board or Editor