Re: [Leica] What do we want from the LHSA?

["Roland Smith" <roland@dnai.com>]

Hello Doug:

Greetings from the colonies.

Does  the LHS offer a publication that us colonials would find enlightening?
If so, how do we subscribe?

Your comments about the Viewfinder coincide with mine.   I am new to the
LHSA and enjoy its publication without advertisement.

Best regards,
Roland Smith
roland@dnai.com

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>;
<leica-users-digest@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 4:38 AM
Subject: [Leica] What do we want from the LHSA?


> From: "Steve LeHuray" <icommag@toad.net> has come up with some
> interesting ideas for the future of the LHSA.
>
>
> >     .An improved Viewfinder, move from quarterly to bi-monthly and
> accept advertising.
>
> The Leica Historical Society here in the UK is about a tenth the size
> of the LHSA, and adverts play a significant role in reducing the
> magazine costs. That said, for me one of the pleasures of reading
> Viewfinder is the absence of adverts. But maybe we Europeans find
> adverts more intrusive than our US counterparts do.
>
> Bi-monthly would be nice, but that implies:
>
> (1) more work for the editor - does he have the time? And if he does
> have the free time, is this what he'd want to do with it?
>
> (2) more work for the contributors - do they have the time? or the
> information?  Blank pages and no articles to put on them are the stuff
> from which editor's nightmares are made!
>
> (3) ... or more contributors. Do we hear volunteers? (Asked with all
> the guilt of someone who promised the LHSA an article almost two years
> ago, and the LHS an article more than a year ago. My apologies to both
> publications, but real-world work has this terrible habit of consuming
> all my time and then some...)
>
>
> >    .Hire a art director for Viewfinder. Graphically it looks like a
> cheap newsletter from the '60's.
>
> I don't think that the LHSA mag "looks like a cheap newsletter from
> the '60's.". It looks OK to me, and far better than most
> camera-society publications. Being a magazine editor, I notice the odd
> 'orphans & widows' at the top and bottom of columns of text, something
> I don't allow in my own publication, but some of my fellow-editors do.
> It's a plain simple layout, and I like plain simple layouts. Hiring an
> art director needs money, and that money would probably mean having
> adverts. My local store is full of camera magazines stuffed with
> advertisements. I'd rather have an ad-free Viewfinder.
>
>
> >A much better website with regular updates.
>
> There are major US and international corporations who can't manage
> that! (A certain US aerospace company hasn't updated its site since
> May of last year.) And they've got salaried employees doing the job -
> not volunteers. Once again, it would need a volunteer with the skills,
> the spare time, and the desire to donate that spare time to the LHSA.
>
>
> >    .Have a forum for member feedback.
>
> An expanded web-site could include a area for postings, but at the
> moment isn't feedback one reason for having a readers' letters page on
> the magazine?
>
>
>
> >    .Figure a way to get rid of that ol' boy image.
>
> To judge by the LHSA folks who came to Wetzlar in 1999, many of the
> members *are* ol' boys. Here in the UK, the AGM of the LHS produces a
> fine crop of gray & silvery hair. If you mean that the society's
> officers are a small group who tend to shuffle the jobs around in
> different permutations, that's par for the course in most enthusiast
> societies, though most committees would welcome new faces. I'm
> relatively new to the LHSA and the LHS, and I'm already in acute
> danger of being elected to the committee of  the latter. The cold
> hungry waters of the north Atlantic will hopefully keep the LHSA at
> bay!
>
>
>
> >    .Hold the Annual Meeting downtown.
>
> As several people have pointed, that would have had advantages.
>
>
> >.Have regional meetings.
>
> I suspect we'll never see a UK chapter of the LHSA. Brits who are
> members of the LHSA are probably members of the LHS as well, so we
> already have a local group. But for the US members, it sounds like a
> good idea. Once again, it may be a question of 'Any volunteers?'. (If
> there are any LHSA members in the London area who are not LHS members,
> I suggest we form an unofficial local chapter of the LHSA at a
> convenient public house. Drop me an email, and I promise the buy the
> first round of drinks - but will try to persuade you to join the LHS
> as well. The same offer goes to any LHSA members whose travels take
> them through London.)
>
> Best regards,
>
> Doug Richardson
>
>
>
>
>
>
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