July 1979

SHADO-USCC

MONTHLY STATUS REPORT

JULY-AUGUST 1979


First, I want to thank Lisa Putman, Jacqui Droz, Tracey Dougherty, Chuck Kelley, and Laura Osgood for their help in putting together the June status report. SHADO-DC comes through again!

Next, let me apologize to those of you, who attended the SPACE 1999 convention the end of July. I had initially planned to attend, but a combination of personal and financial difficulties prevented it. I haven't heard too much about the convention, as yet, but if those of you who attended can drop me a line and give me your impression of the convention, I'll try to publish a report on the activities in the next status report.

Finally, those of you who have ordered photos and not yet received them, do. ncrt despair. Your orders will be mailed shortly. Right now matters are hung up awaiting the arrival of the color prints, but if they do not show up within the next week or so, I will go ahead and mail the partially completed orders anyway.

I have received several inquiries concerning the deadline for submissions for the October handbook. For the most part, the contents of the handbook have already been selected, but if you have a good, relatively short factual article relating to UFO, I am very interested. In addition, if you are interested in illustrating either of the two stories currently slated for the handbook, please let me know. The deadline for written submissions is October 1, 1979, and this is a FIRM deadline if the handbook is to be prepared, sent to the printer, and mailed out before the end of October.

Next, I have received several letters from members commenting/complaining about the frequency of status reports, the fact that there is only one handbook put out a year, etc, and I would like to take this opportunity to make a general response to the issues so raised. I would like to put out an exciting, invigorating status report every month and several handbooks a year, but there are three BIG PROBLEMS:
1) MANPOWER,
2) MONEY, and,
3) MATERIAL.

MANPOWER:

Believe it or not, SHADO-USCC is basically a ONE-PERSON operation, as it currently stands. I answer the club correspondence (and it's surprising how many members want an immediate response), I fill the merchandize and photo orders, I correct the mailing addresses, I send out membership renewal and promotion packages, I write the status reports, I take the status reports to the printer and pick them back up, I run off the mailing labels, I collate, fold, staple, stamp, and mail the status reports (and, occasionally, when I'm in Washington DC, I coerce the group there into helping me with it), I select the material for the handbook, I type the material for the handbook, I take the handbook to the printer, I collate, staple, package, stamp, and mail the handbook---and it all takes time, not to mention energy. But MANPOWER is not the worst of the problems. In fact, it is probably the most easy to solve of the three.

MONEY: The next major hurdle is MONEY. Money to print the status reports and handbooks, money to buy the envelopes to mail them in, money to buy the stamps to mail them with, money to print the photos, money to....

How much does a 4 page status report cost, you ask? One hundred and fifty copies of two, double-sided offset pages runs $15, the postage runs $23, for a total of $38 per status report (on the average, this one is costing $62).

How much does a handbook cost? The printing costs increase according to the number of pages in the handbook. A hundred page handbook (about the size I expect this year) runs $356 in printing costs, and $160 (approximately) in mailing costs (at the current domestic postal rates), for a total of about $516. Members currently pay $5.80 per year (including the cost of stamps). So, with a membership roster of 150, the yearly club income would be $870, (sounds like an awful lot, doesn't it) but not all memberships expire at the same time, so there is never anywhere near that amount in the bank account at any one time.

So, if we publish six four-page status reports and one handbook, the publication and mailing costs would total $744. On the other hand, if we publish 6 status reports the size of this one and one handbook, the total comes to $888 ($19 overrun), or 12 four-page status reports and one handbook, $972 ($102 overrun).

As you can see the debits and the credits are pretty near equal, and this accounting does not take into consideration the costs of the materials in the membership renewal packets or the "petty" sums shelled out for the additional stamps and envelopes, etc., needed for answering inquiries which did not include a stamped, self-addressed envelope (SASE), which the majority of the club correspondence does not. (And I feel a lot more guilty about not immediately answering a letter which includes an SASE than I do about putting off answering one which doesn't have an SASE...HINT, HINT...) BUT, I am reluctant to raise club dues. A large portion of our membership is composed of students, and, having once been a poor, starving student myself, I know how much difference even a small additional expense can make.

MATERIAL: But, the major problem comes from lack of suitable material. I wish I had a personal goldmine of it, but I don't. The MAJOR reason for reducing the frequency of the status reports was lack of new and interesting material to put in them. And thus far, in spite of all my pleading, that situation has not changed substantially. Perhaps this is my fault, perhaps I have not taken the right approach to the situation, but it does not change the facts. I have to dig hard and deep to scrape up enough copy to fill a bimonthly status report, much less a monthly one, and the digging is not fun.

Well, there you have it, the three big M's. If there were sufficient, readily available material for the status reports, I'd be glad to revert to monthly ones. With an increase in fees, more handbooks would be a possibility, assuming availability of suitable materials. With more help, I'd be a lot more willing to listen to reason.... END of sermon.

On to more cheerful things... A photo list was published in the last status report. Most, but not all, of the photos on the list were previously offered by the now-defunct "Cottage Industries". SHADO USCC, however, possesses a much larger collection of photos from UFO than those included in the published list, and, in the spirit of sharing the wealth would like to make some of them available to SHADO members. Due to the large number of photos and the fact that there is an initial $8.00 fee per photo in order to make a negative from which duplicates can be made, this process must be an incremental one (being a non-profit organization, SHADO USCC can't afford to go out and make negatives for all the photos just on speculation).

So, I decided to ask the members which photos they would be most interested in purchasing (if they could). The remainder of this status report contains a listing of all the black and white stills which could be made available for purchase. If you would be interested in purchasing one of the stills (for the standard $2.00 price), please drop us a line, giving the letter designation (A10, D6, P4, Y5, B9, etc.) of the photos you are interested in. Should you be willing to pay extra in order to insure that the photo you are interested in makes it to the list, please include that information as well. With luck, not every photo will receive just one vote, and, please, don't say you're interested in one unless you REALLY are.

A number of additional color stills could also become available if there is sufficient interest, so if you would be interested in them, please let me know. A listing of the color stills. will probably be published in one of the upcoming status reports, the next of which should appear in November (unless the handbook gets delayed).