January 1978

SHADO---USCC

MONTHLY STATUS REPORT JAN-FEB 1978

TO: All SHADO Operatives

From: The Command Staff of SHADO USCC

Subject: SHADO Operative Procedures


HAPPY NEW YEAR!


First, let us take a brief moment to wish you all a happy, healthy, and joyous new year and to thank all of you who have already sent in renewal dues and encourage those of you who are up for renewal and who have not already renewed to do so. This will be the last status report issued to those who were asked to renew in the December Handbook. Check the mailing label on this Status Report. Your membership expiration date should be on the label, along with the amount of your renewal fees IF it is time (or near time) for you to renew. If the label says "FINAL NOTICE" after listing your expiration date, then this is the LAST publication you will receive from us unless you send in Tour dues. If a renewal fee is indicated-but it doesn't say "FINAL NOTICE", then you will have at least one more notice that you should renew before we are forced to drop you from our membership list.

We have received quite a number of rejoining members since December, for which we are extremely grateful. Publication and mailing costs for the last handbook nearly emptied our club coffer and the renewal fees were necessary to continue operations. (Damn General Henderson's tightwad budgets anyway!! How he expects us to accomplish anything with the money crumbs he doles out is beyond us.) We have also received a number of questions about the club, its operations, and the- UFO series in general.

We regret that we are unable to provide personal responses to inquiries UNLESS a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope (called a S.A.S.E. for those of you who may have seen the term and not known what it meant) is supplied along with the inquiry. Also, if you send us something -- a story, an illustration, an article, whatever -- and you would like some confirmation that it indeed reached us intact, enclose an SASE and a note indicating that you desire acknowledgment of our receipt of your material and we will be GLAD to dash off an acknowledgment note, stuff it in your SASE, and drop it into the mailbox, usually by the next day answers to questions take a little longer, however, so please be patient).

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

We have received a number of positive responses to the last handbook. Most of our members seem to enjoy reading UFO fiction and those of you that we've heard from seem to be clamoring for more, as well you might. We at SHADO USCC enjoy SHADO fiction as much as anyone, perhaps even more; we even write some of our own. ALL of the material in the last handbook was written (or drawn) Ty-SHADO personnel -- and none of it by SHADO USCC staff. Our material comes from our members, but we don't get much of it and some of what we receive, though interesting in its own right, does not meet the format for our handbooks. We try to choose what we publish very carefully to please our members and we ' DO NOT publish ANYTHING simply because it is the ONLY thing we have to choose from. he point of all this is that if we have nothing to pick and choose from, we have NOTHING to publish. If we do not receive poems, articles, illustrations, cartoons, stories, jokes, etc. from our members, we can not reasonably be expected to continue to produce handbooks containing new, interesting, and exciting UFO material. WE are not magicians. We can not create a fanzine out of thin air by snapping our fingers and uttering a few magical incantations (oh how we wish we could! It would be ever so much easier...).

It has been our experience that almost every fan has at least one story aching to be put down on paper. Well, here's your opportunity. Sit down, if you can find the time, let it out, and send us a copy (but not your ONLY copy, please! We don't want to feel responsible if the U.S. Post Office loses it somewhere on the way. Send us a copy (xerox or carbon), as long as it is LEGIBLE ). Don't worry about crossed out or editted words. We have to retype anyway if we decide to publish a story, so it's not worth wasting your time on a typographical masterpiece when we have to redo it anyway. If you are sending a piece of artwork, most of the same rules apply, but it is especially important that the lines be DARK, so that they make good xerox or photo-offset copy.

Our editorial policy is as follows:

1. We reserve the right to choose what we do or do not publish. We are in no manner compelled (nor do we "feel" compelled, which is more important in the long run) to publish EVERYTHING we receive.

2. Once we decide to publish an article, we DO NOT make editorial changes except under the following circumstances.

A. The material contains gross and glaring technical inaccuracies. For example, if a story claimed Commander Straker had RED hair, we would correct the mistake, unless there was a logical reason within the story explaining HOW Commander Straker came to have red hair (presumably this would be a temporary, and not long-term condition). As an example of such a situation in a non-UFO context, we came across a printed Star Trek story ( a professionally printed, non-fan publication, by the way) which claimed that Scotty had red hair. Unless our color set is WAY off, Mr. Scott does not and never has had red hair. This is the type of glaring technical error we would feel compelled to correct.

B. Changes to the wording or structure of a sentence necessary to make it understandable to native English speakers. Many of our members are foreign and English is not their native language (and, for non-natives, they write EXTREMELY well in a foreign language. Don't get us -wrong; we're not trying to knock our foreign members. We only wish our American members would write half as much!) Since we publish in English, we will (and do) make minor changes to sentence form which we feel improve understandability.

3. We respect any special instructions we receive from the source of any submitted material (eg. the author, artist). If we are admonished not to change a single word or punctuation mark (even those which might fall under 2A or 2B, as explained above), we will respect those instructions. This may result in the article not being published, however, and all such instructions must be explicitly stated in writing. In the absence of instructions to the contrary, it is assumed that the author understands and agrees to any editorial changes which are in accordance with our editorial policy (as stated above and below).

4. Material is not normally returned except upon explicit request of its author (with appropriate postage fees included in the request). Material once received is placed in our files whereby it becomes available and accessible to any SHADO operative in good standing UNLESS we receive explicit instructions to the contrary from the author in writing.

We do not require that manuscripts we receive be typed (though we recommend it), merely that they be LEGIBLE without resorting to magnifying glasses or special chemical treatments. Don't be afraid to print. Printing is easier to read than script and very few people have really legible handwriting, especially when pouring heart and soul into a story. Use the following observation as your guideline: If a story is hard to read then it may not get read and if it doesn't get read, then it will not get published. Such are our "guidelines". We do not consider them to be particularly rigorous or hard to meet. Have fun and we hope to hear from you.

If you have any ideas or questions regarding the club or its operations, we'd like to hear them. We don't promise to take every suggestion we get, but without member feedback (complaints as well as praise), we have no way of judging how well (or how badly) we are succeeding in running the organization. Don't be afraid to make suggestions. They might have been made before; then again, they may be totally new. Let us be the judge. We LIKE hearing from our members, even when they complain.

COMPLAINTS AND EXPLANATIONS

As far as complaints go, a few of our newer members have written in with gripes concerning the renewal policy set out in the last handbook. The gist of the complaint seemed to be as follows:

A. They had paid their four dollars, been promised 9 status reports and 3 handbooks, and received only 4 status reports and 1 handbook;
B. Now we had the nerve to ask for more money from them when they had not yet received their first year's money's worth;
C. We had promised to change their expiration date; and, D. Would we kindly live up to our promise?

Our response goes something like this: Yes, we did promise in the August 1977 Status Report, where we announced the temporary shutdown of SHADO USCC, that we would adjust the expiration dates. This was caused by an administrative screw-up which occurred while Colonel Jones was in the hospital and someone new and less experienced in such matters was temporarily in command. This officer, not being particularly psychic and able to read Colonel Jones' mind, had not realized that Dale had intended from the first to pro-rate the new memberships, keeping the expiration dates the same, rather than changing everyone's expiration date.

We should have explained the reasoning behind the sudden change in plans when we announced the pro-rating policy in the December handbook and we must apologize for not doing so at that time. The reason for pro-rating memberships rather than extending expiration dates is fairly simple: extending expiration dates requires reissuing SHADO ID cards to all 208 operatives who were members of SHADO USCC in 1977 (since the expiration date is on the card). This requires reprinting 208 cards, mailing them to England to be signed by Commander Straker (that is an authentic signature, by the way), sending them back to California, filling in the rest of the information, and mailing them out to all the members. Mail service to England is extremely slow (as our English members are probably painfully aware) and very expensive. If the cards were sent airmail in both directions and Mr. Bishop managed to sign and mail them back the very day they arrived, it would probably take three weeks at the very least. We could not afford to send the cards airmail and Mr. Bishop can not be expected to sign membership cards immediately if he is working, so realistically, at surface mail rates, one could expect the process to take a minimum of three months, just to get the signed cards back! By the time they would finally reach the members, most of the extended expiration dates would be up anyway. THIS IS WHY we have decided not to adjust membership expiration dates.

Secondly, although members may not have received as many packages as they were promised, they did receive their money's worth. Sixty-one printed pages of material were sent to members in 1976, which included 17 pages in status reports and 44 pages in handbooks. In 1977, fifty-nine printed pages were mailed to our members, 7 pages in status reports and 52 pages in handbooks, a sum total of TWO pages less than in 1976 (and when you include the 11 pages of this Status Report, sent to all 1977 members, rejoining or otherwise, it brings the total up to 70, NINE pages MORE than in 1976). AND the 1977 mailing included an additional 5-x7photograph (the one of Commander Straker and Colonel Lake from "Timelash") which is not part of our "normal" yearly membership package. No such photograph was sent to all of our members in 1976. If there are any of you who still feel that you have been cheated, we are sorry. If you feel cheated, then don't rejoin.

No one is forcing anyone to remain in SHADO-USCC unwillingly. Although we do not like losing members and feel badly about that fact that we were unable to meet our commitments to our members to the letter of the law, we do feel that we have lived up to our promises in spirit (though not, strictly speaking, in fact) and do not feel that we really "owe" our members anything more than what we have already delivered. We would have preferred to have accomplished more than we were in fact able to accomplish in 1977, but we were beset by circumstances beyond our control. We are sorry if such things upset some of our members, but they are facts of life. We can do nothing more than say that we are sorry.and try our hardest to do better in the future.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

We are still in the process of recovering from the administrative disaster that resulted from Colonel Jones' six-month illness. We "think" we have filled all the orders that we received before December 1977. Our last batch of packages was mailed on January 23, 1978, some of it third class. If you are expecting something from us (other than status reports and fanzines) that has not arrived by the end of February, please drop us a note reminding us of the particulars and we will try to get matters cleared up.

We profusely apologize to the new members (especially those who joined between September and December) for being so long in getting their membership packets out. Colonel Jones was handling them personally until about a week ago when she discovered she could no longer see well enough to read the names on the membership forms in order to fill out the cards and address the packages. The task has now been delegated to another officer and response should be better in the future.

We have just ordered a limited number of sew-on SHADO patches which should arrive in 6-8 weeks. We will be selling them for $3.00 each once they arrive. If you wish to reserve one, send us your cash, check, or money order, payable to "SHADO-USCC". We are also taking names for a waiting list, for those who do not wish to order at the moment, but would like a place in line. The patches consist of the SHADO insignia enclosed in a 2x3 inch rectangle (for mounting purposes -- the patch company advised us that the patch would probably ravel badly and would be almost impossible to attach to anything without the surrounding rectangle).

One of our members had suggested that we might consider selling SHADO patches. Although we were already investigating the feasibility of having them made, we want to thank him for his suggestion. It was an excellent idea and if you will write us reminding us who you are ( and we have our ways of confirming your identity as the primary author of the idea, just in case anyone else is might be thinking of trying to cash in on your idea), we are prepared to offer you a discount on your patch, both in recognition of the worthiness of your suggestion and as an incentive for others to bring forth their own ideas. Although our initial order was only for 20 patches (a number of which are already spoken for), we will reorder immediately (even before receipt of the original order, if need be), if demand is great enough to justify it.

VIDEO-TAPE

Now that the video tape industry seems to have finally come of age, a number of our more affluent members have purchased video tape recorders (VTRs) and have expressed an interest in obtaining recordings of UFO episodes. There are a number of cities across the country which either are, have been, or will be rerunning UFO. Unfortunately it seems to be the case that none of the members with VTRs live in any of the areas where UFO is being broadcast, and they find this state of affairs extremely frustrating.

We are intimately acquainted with the feeling since one of the members our staff purchased a $2000, three-quarter inch JVG CR-6300-U videotape recorder in September of 1976 for the sole purpose of recording the 20 episodes (out of the original 26) of UFO that one of the Los Angeles TV stations had promised to air during the month of September in 1976. The station showed 10 of the promised episodes, then replaced UFO with re-re-re-reruns of "Wild, Wild West". Since then, we have been able to obtain a number of additional episodes from a member on the East Coast who was rich and fortunate enough to have a compatible VTR and kind enough to make tapes for US.

Consequently, we have video-tapes of the following UFO episodes: "Timelash", "Mindbender", "Subsmash", "Question of Priorities", "Confetti Check A-OKI', "Psychobombs", "Exposed", "Kill Straker", "ESP?', "The Long Sleep", "Court-Martial", "Reflections in the Water", "Conflict", "Identified", and (part of) "The Dalotek Affair".

So much for the good news. Now for the bad news. First, these are 3/4 inch tapes. They can not be played on either the Sony Betamax, RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, or any of the other 1/2 inch video cassette recorders currently flooding the market. One can, however, transfer (or duplicate) a 3/4 inch tape onto a 112 inch tape, PROVIDED one has access to a 1/2 inch VTR (which we don't). Alternatively, there are companies which will duplicate tapes or rent VTRs, but the costs are exorbitant ($35/hour to duplicate a tape, $35-50/day to rent a VTR).

Second, 1/2 inch tapes are not necessarily compatible (among themselves) either. There are two radically different 112 inch tape formats: Betamax and one other (the name escapes us at the moment; it was explained on a special TV news segment), and never the twain shall meet. The only real guarantee is that you can play a tape on another recorder of the same size, brand name, and model.
One of our local members recently purchased a 1/2 inch VTR which we "might" be able to borrow for duplication purposes. If you have a VTR or are thinking of buying one ---everyone seems to be these days---and would be interested in corresponding with other VTR owners in the club, drop us a line (with a SASE) and we will put you on our list and refer other VTR owners to you and vice-versa. Be sure to include the name-brand, model, and tape size of your VTR and any other details you think might be useful.

We can take no responsibility, however, for anything that might happen as a result of such a referral (lost, stolen, or damaged tapes, etc.). If you would like to place an ad in the Status Report, send us a note specifying how you would like the ad to read and we will include it in the next Status Report. We already have one such ad, (which we have temporarily misplaced, but hope to relocate any moment ... if the member who placed it can jog our memory by reminding us of his name, we would be very appreciative) which will be printed in the next Status Report.

A number of our members have also expressed an interest in obtaining copies of audio-tapes of either the UFO theme or various UFO episodes. In the past, SHADO USCC provided a tape duplication service, which we have since discontinued (for a number of reasons, primarily Colonel Jones' health). We can, however, act as a referral service. If you have reasonable audio tapes of the UFO episodes and you are interested in helping out a less fortunate fellow operative in need of tapes, send us your name, address, and fee (if any), and we will point members in need in your direction. If you would like to obtain audio tapes of UFO, drop us a line (and a SASE) and we will send you the names and addresses of members who have offered their services in this capacity.

COLONEL JONES AND COTTAGE INDUSTRIES

There are probably a number of you who have had dealings with "Cottage Industries" in the past and there are probably some of you who are (to put it mildly) upset with the slow response you may have been getting from them, especially since April. You may or may not have already guessed, but Colonel Jones is associated with Cottage Industries in an intimate fashion and when she became ill in April, SHADO was not the only organization that suffered. If you have a Cottage Industries order which you haven't received, please write us here (at SHADO USCC, not the Cottage Industries address) and give us the details, the more specific the better. You should address all such correspondence to:

Cottage Industries
c/o SHADO USCC
1808 112 N. Van Ness
Hollywood, Calif. 90028


Just a short paragraph on Colonel Jones' status. Colonel Jones is a 31 year-old diabetic (since the age of 10), unemployed, on Social Security Disability, who has recently been declared legally blind. She can still see somewhat, enough to watch TV at close range and avoid obstacles, but she is unable to read unless the type is EXTREMELY large. This is not intended as a sympathy plea or anything of the sort. It is simply a statement of fact and an appeal for a little understanding and patience. Dale is interested in hearing from the members, but most letters must be read to her by a second party (typically her room-mate). Please be patient in awaiting responses from Dale. She is doing her best, but she is far from well, even now. AND PLEASE!!! do not be offended if the person who answers your questions or letters is someone other than Colonel Jones herself.

BACK ISSUES

Members have written us asking about the availability of back issues of Status Reports and Handbooks. Back issues of all the Status Reports are available on a per issue basis for $.25 each (plus one 13-cent stamp) or in bulk (an entire set of Status Report, Volumes 2 through 39 inclusive, excluding volumes 13 and 15, which are non-existant) at a substantial discount (write us for a quote, it depends on when you joined). We have back issues of the Spring, Summer, and Fall 1976 handbooks available for $1.00 each (plus two 13-cent stamps). Copies of the 52 page December 1977 handbook are also available for $3.00 each (it's over three times as large and includes the "Timelash" photo as well), plus three 13-cent stamps. The Status Reports are an average of two pages long and contain information on the current activities of the UFO cast members, club activities, etc. The handbooks are an average of 15 pages in length and contain articles, stories, artwork, cartoons, and poems relating to the UFO television series. We are out of copies of the all the other handbooks. They are somewhat difficult to duplicate, since they were mimeoed, double-sided and do not offset or xerox very well, but we are willing to go to the effort of reissuing those handbooks if it appears there is sufficient demand to justify reproducing at least 16 copies per handbook.

FACTS AND FIGURES

By now most of you have received the December Handbook which tokened the reopening of operations here at SHADO USCC. As was mentioned in the handbook itself, it was the largest, most ambitious, expensive, and (we think) best publication we have ever produced during our organization's 4 112 years of operation. Those of you who have been with us over the years are probably aware of this, but those of you who are relatively new to our ranks may not fully appreciate how ambitious our last handbook was in comparison to our earlier publications, and we would like to take the time, space, and effort here to explain a few things about the workings of our organization.

First of all, SHADO USCC is a non-profit organization. Everything it does it supported and paid for in its entirety from the yearly membership dues. Those of you who may be secretly harboring the notion that the members of the command staff of USCC are lining their pockets with your hard-earned money, kindly divest yourself of that misconception once and for all. Let us quote you a few figures and let you add them up for yourselves.

At our last mailing, we sent out 208 handbooks, weighing 5 1/2 ounces each. Of these 208, 39 were mailed to members living outside the North American continent (foreign members). The cost for mailing alone was:

U.S. POSTAGE: 169 x $.39= $65-91 (third class rate)
FOREIGN POSTAGE: 39 x $.50= $19.50 (surface printed matter)
ENVELOPES: $22.50

TOTAL MAILING COST: $107.91

Each package contained one handbook and one 5X7 photograph. The fanzine itself was 52 pages in length. Three of the pages, the front cover and both sides of the center page, contained illustrations, which were photo-offset, while the rest of the handbook was mimeoed.

PHOTOS: 208 x $.35 $72.80
OFFSET: 3 x $3.90 $11.70
PAPER: 15 x $2.50 $37.50 (price for 15 reams)
STENCILS: 50 x $.20 $10.00

TOTAL HANDBOOK COST: $132.00

This does not include the cost of the mimeo machine itself, which the club owns and was purchased with SHADO funds, the cost of the ink, which was left over from previous printings (but also paid for by SHADO funds), any of the labor involved in actually doing the printing, which was volunteered (more or less) free of charge, nor the cost of typing the stencils, which was also volunteered free of charge. Our printer and typist is a full-time computer specialist who normally works 16-18/hour days at a rate of $12/hour and who commands salaries in the range of $25/hour when computed on an hourly rather than monthly rate. Time in excess of 20 hours was spent in typing, editting, and eventually printing the stencils. The printing of the handbook itself consumed over 15 hours, with an extra overhead of 6 hours to cover the collating, stapling, stuffing, folding, and stamping of the envelopes (our thanks to Gene Schneider for pitching in with the collating and stamping; our printer had backaches for a week as it was). And we must not forget the delightful and time-consuming experience of standing in line at the post office during Christmas rush in order to buy stamps.

Thus the total expense for the last handbook alone was $107.91 + $132.00 = $239.91. Now, membership dues are $4.00/year, plus $1.56 in stamps, amounting to a total of $5.56/year per member. With 208 members, this gives us a yearly operating revenue of $1156.48, of which $239-91 was spent on this single fanzine. It must be pointed out that we could have had the entire handbook offset, instead of offsetting 3 pages and mimeoing the rest. It would have been considerably less hassle, much faster, and resulted in a somewhat nicer looking finished product (our printer wishes to apologize to those of you who were unfortunate enough to have received handbooks where pages 15 and 16 were reversed -- upside down relative to each other; there were only about 25 that came out that way, but by the time the error was noticed, it was much too late to do anything about it except put it in and say 'whoops!". Consider it a collector's item). AND, it would only have cost $202.80 just to offset the handbook, bringing the total up to $361 by the time you've added in postage and photos, which is almost one third of our annual operating budget, so you can see why we took the harder (but cheaper) way out.


REQUEST FOR COMMENTS

We are considering, but have not yet decided for certain, changing the frequency of our publications. The monthly Status Reports have a tendency to get a bit dull at times and there are months when there is virtually nothing to report on, while at other times we are inundated with things to write about. We would like to publish more fiction than we have in the past, but the handbooks are CONSIDERABLY more trouble to produce than the Status Reports and with the current (small) size of our operating staff (essentially two, count 'em, people, one of whom can't see well at all), producing a handbook is a MAJOR undertaking. It has been suggested that perhaps it might be better if we were to produce one HUGE handbook (hundreds of pages, perhaps) a year, and only a few Status Reports, depending on whether there is anything of interest to report.

Producing a larger handbook would give us the opportunity to include longer stories (and we have a LOT of long.stories) and a chance to publish a larger number of stories, as well as reducing the stress on the staff personnel significantly, since we would only have to kill ourselves once a year instead of the normal three times annually. We would like to know how the members would feel about such a change in publication policy, so if you have strong feelings one way or the other or would like to suggest any other alternatives, please write us and give us your thoughts on the matter. In the absence of any obvious, overwhelming consensus of opinion from the members, we will, of course, make our own decision, but we would like to involve our members as much as possible when it comes to choosing new directions for the organization, so PLEASE let us know how you feel.


SIGHTINGS

By now most of country has had the opportunity to see Ed in the PBS Children's Classic presentation of "What Katy Did". Although the story itself tends to be a bit below the level most of our members seem to find interesting, all of those who have reported watching the show have expressed pleasu re in viewing Ed's portrayl of Dr. Carr. We don't know how he does it, but he seems to get younger and more handsome each time we see him (we just wish it were more often...).

Our latest word from the Commander is that he is keeping VERY busy doing voice-overs left and right. He spent some time in Wales during January working on a BBC 90-minute film presentation on Dylan Thomas in which, as he put it, he had a "smallish part of an American professor". Hopefully it will make it to US television sometime in the relatively near future. We don't yet know the name of the production, but we will let you know as soon as we find out.

ANSWERS TO A FEW MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS

One of our members who hasn't been fortunate enough to see UFO in the flesh for quite some time asked us to jog his memory concerning Miss Ealand. Miss Ealand is Commander Straker's studio receptionist/secretary and as such controls any entry into the bowels of SHADO HQ which is accomplished through Ed Straker's private studio office.

Another of our members asked what time she should phone Colonel Jones, if the need arose to do so. Dale.is a very late sleeper. Her hours typically run from 2 or 3 in the afternoon to 3 or 4 in the morning (1400 - 0400) Pacific Standard Time, so if you call before late afternoon, the chances that she will answer the phone are very slim. If you call before 10am, there is a chance that her roommate will answer the phone if you let it ring long enough, but she will not, except in an emergency, wake Dale up under such conditions. Those of you who live in different time zones must be especially careful. There is a difference of three hours between the east and west coasts and when it's noon on the east coast, it's only 9am in California, so plan accordingly.

We have been asked by some of our members to give out Mr. Bishop's home address. Mr. Bishop has requested that we do not distribute his address. If you have something (a letter, a card, whatever) which you would like to send to Mr. Bishop, we will be glad to forward it to him (provided you've included sufficient funds to cover postal fees to England; we're sorry, but we can't afford to pay for it out of our own pockets. Once you've investigated how much it costs to send something over the ocean, you'll understand why).

Well, here we are on page eleven of a Status Report we expected to be CONSIDERABLY shorter. THIS IS NOT and SHOULD NOT be construed to be a "typical" Status Report (so don't expect them to be this long in the future), but there were a number of matters which we felt were important enough to spend a reasonable amount of time trying to get cleared up. So long until next time (don't expect it to be for several months). We hope to be hearing from you. May all of your UFO's turn out to be friendly (or weather baloons, depending upon your personal preference).

The Staff
SHADO U.S. Central Control

This is fascinating stuff Bill - thanks for taking the time and effort to
type it all up and share it with us! (Pics of Wanda Ventham--even black
and white--are always welcome!)

I wonder if any of the folks behind SHADO USCC are members of this group now?

Doug


At 02:59 PM 2/12/2003 -0500, you wrote:

Man!! that was a long one :O)
I *really* enjoyed the read though.

Thanks so much for going to the trouble of typing it out!!
(I assume you had to type it out).

Jaime


On Thursday, February 13, 2003, at 06:59 AM, Bill Adkins wrote:
<snip>



Regards...
Jaime

http://jaime.net
http://bender.cc

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jaime wrote: "Man!! that was a long one :O) I *really* enjoyed the
read though. Thanks so much for going to the trouble of typing it out!!
(I assume you had to type it out)."

Actually the OCR software did most of the work, but there was alot of
corrections to make. The "Handbooks" which contained lengthy stories
and art, won't scan in at all and the contents page I posted as
November 1977 was completely typed. I hope everyone enjoyed them. Even
though the newsletters contained what many refer to as
"adminsitrivia," I am amazed at the work that went in to publishing
them in the days when word processors were pencils and typewriters and
printers were carbon paper, mimeographs, and xerox machines.

Hi all,

The Italian Section of SHADO website now has a scan of
a flyer for the upcoming Italian UFO DVDs:

http://digilander.libero.it/ISOS/dvd/FlierUFObw_big.jpg

Anyone care to translate any significant details of this
release into English for those of us who can't understand
Italian?

Marc

Not en expert...but some of the stuff I'm able to guess at (with some help
from Altavista) <g>:

1) complete restored edition
2) audio and video remastered
3) contains all the cut scenes (I think meaning stuff cut when it was
broadcast in Italy)
4) dolby 5.1
5) animated menu (computer graphics)
6) subtitles in Italian and English
7) special (exclusive?) 16 page booklet detailing the series
8) DVD ROM contents

Extras include:

1) deleted scenes
2) Gerry Anderson commentary
3) original trailers
4) photo gallery
5) merchandise guide

There appears to be a "deluxe edition" too which contains

1) interview with Ed Bishop
2) exclusive content (?)
3) collectors cards (trading cards??)
4) original "photogram" from the series (that's how Altavista translated
fotogramma)

There also appears to be a Web site (www.UFODVD.it) which will contain some
stuff -- one of which looks like photos of a reconstructed Moonbase set....the
URL is not active (I tried it).

The text under Wanda's picture looks like a description of the series.

I'm sure our Italian friends will be able to fill in the (large) holes in my
rough translation. :)

Looks like an interesting box set -- probably the deluxe would be the one to
go for.

Anthony
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Martin" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 11:55 AM
Subject: [SHADO] Details of the Upcoming Italian UFO DVDs!

> 4) original "photogram" from the series (that's how Altavista
translated
> fotogramma)

"fotogramma" is as "frame".

---
http://www.isoshado.org/
Italian Section of SHADO
AF
---

Oh thanks! So they'll be including a frame from an episode? I've seen those in
trading cards.

BTW, the flyer looks like what a video dealer would get (rather than one for
consumers). Is that correct?

Anthony
----- Original Message -----
From: <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 12:31 PM
Subject: [SHADO] Re: Details of the Upcoming Italian UFO DVDs!

Bill,

Have you ever thought about trying to manipulate the "impossible"
to scan versions using either a photocopier, or some image processing
software? It might be possible with some image software or possibly a
photocopy to develop an image that could be printed and rescanned in the
OCR software to get the software to take the text. It might take a
little work, but it should do the trick for you.

Tom Bryant


Bill Adkins wrote:
>Actually the OCR software did most of the work, but there was alot of
>corrections to make. The "Handbooks" which contained lengthy stories
>and art, won't scan in at all

Has anyone got a good on-line source for the Italian UFO DVD's. Also
an idea of cost, and what format: box set ? and/or indivdual DVD's?

The Lunadude





--- In [hidden email], Marc Martin <marc@u...> wrote: