From the Editor |
WOW! I can’t believe it!! We actually got over 20 votes (out of a voting membership of over 700) for the elections! Thanks to all of you interested enough to vote. Even if you didn’t, though, we still need you for various committees and such throughout the year. Please consider volunteering an hour or so of your time per month for things like planning the RG, helping with the MensaPhone, and so forth.
And a special thanks to those of you who responded to Carol’s and my call for people to host events. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! Check the calendar, and look in the August issue for a new event which will start that month.
And other exciting news: not only do we have The Return of Kebba in the form of her wellness column, we had a wonderful phone call from a new member asking if she could start a news column. So we now have two new continuing items for MAAM. So if you get a phone call from Suzie Kilgard, don’t be surprised – just give her a few brief juicy gossip tidbits and she’ll go away quietly …
Also, I got several requests to feature the Forum on the cover. It’s always got a blurb in the lower right corner, but apparently that’s missed by those of us over 50 with Varilux lenses … so when our new Assistant LocSec sends me the information, it will be prominently featured on the front page.
Looking over the other publications receiving Owl Nominations: While all of them are good, I think we could garner a few more nominations next year with … hmmm, let’s see … how about some of you artists out there sending me some drawings? Black and white only, please, and preferably high-contrast (that means in pen and ink, rather than pencil or charcoal).
And speaking of submissions, I can’t thank all of you enough. We’re getting a wonderful bunch of articles sent in, and I can’t wait to run as many as possible. A few suggestions, though, to make my life easier:
1. Don’t format. That means don’t indent paragraphs, don’t use spaces to line up columns (use tabs instead), and don’t double-space. I have to remove all of your hard work to import the file into PageMaker, where I already have paragraph indents, extra spaces between paragraphs, etc. preformatted. So if you indent, for instance, end up with a double indent unless I strip it off.
2. Keep your articles to one single-spaced (typewritten) page or less. I want to include as many different authors as possible in each issue, and am delighted to give you a page. But if I get three or more pages, I have to edit down … and that takes more time than just dropping in another article that does meet space requirements. And besides, I might edit out something you think is really important. So edit yourself down to a page or less.
3. E-mail it to me. If you send hard copy by mail, I have to retype it. Sometimes I don’t have enough time allotted to do that, so your article may languish for a few months.
4. Ignore everything I just said and send it in! Even if you can’t e-mail it, get it to me! If you’ve got something to say, I’ll do my best to get it in MAAM. This is supposed to be the newsletter for GPM, and the only way it fulfills that function is if it has stuff from GPM.