Alternatives to NMS

[Aodhan Ite an Fhithich]

Dia duit!

 [Replying to a message of Patricia Horton to All]
 PH> Subject: Re: October Board Meeting Report

Maire,

The Board needs to consider some real austerity measures.  For example:

 * Cut funding on TI. There is no justification for spending money on a slick
cover and and slick paper.  Look at recent issues of An Tir's _The Crier_, the
print quality is as good as TI on paper that's only a step or two above
newspaper stock.

 * Reduce the newsletter stipend to the Kingdoms. Or at least don't raise it. 
Encourage the Kingdoms to cut their expenses and let the Corporation transfer
the surplus to the subscription liability account.  I know Ansteorra could cut
the size (and thus the cost) of _Blackstar_ in half.  Consider the following
data taken from October newsletters (page counts include covers, but not
unnumbered inserts):

                         Events    Event          Total
  Kingdom   | Branches | Oct-Mar | Flyers/Pages | Pages
  ------------------------------------------------------
  East      |     97   |    41   |   39/20      |   48
  Middle    |    129   |    40   |   12/6       |   38
  Ansteorra |     42   |    39   |   15/19      |   48

How do the East and Middle do this?  No maps.  Minimal wasted space.  Small
(but readable) fonts. Regular paper stock covers.  Some Kingdoms could save
more than others, but every bit helps, yes?

 * Cut the size of the "time to renew" and new membership card packets. 
Judicious pruning and reformatting of the text should halve the amount of
printed matter.  Send a return mailing label instead of a whole envelope in
the "renew" packet.

I'm sure I could find more ways to cut costs if I dug through the budget. 
These are just off the cuff.

Feicfidh me' ari's thu',

Aodhan
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Baron Aodhan Ite an Fhithich    aodhan at dobharchu.org
Master of the Laurel            Lough na Dobharchu' BBS  1-713-338-2570
Dobharchu' Herald               "Your Information Roman Road"
mka David H. Brummel            1:106/22 
SCA Member 02245                Barony of Loch Soilleir, Ansteorra
http://www.phoenix.net/~dbrummel
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