[Leica] What do we want from the LHSA?

["Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>]

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