Porsche Club of America - Upper Canada Region: 35th Anniversary September 2011

Editor of Provinz has to be the toughest job at UCR. In his approximately three-and-a-quarter year tenure (then, now it's three months later), Kye Wankum had done a terrific job for our Magazine, although of late his missing the publishing deadline had, unfortunately, become a regular occurence. We on the UCR Board were very concerned, but not to the point of wanting to do away with such a talented and dedicated Editor as Kye.

Kye assured us he was on top of things. And then came the GREAT DELAY. While in the midst of it, what were we to do? At times, Kye could not/would not commit to a publishing date, although from day-to-day the publishing date never seemed more than a fortnight away, and when he did commit to a date, the date was then put off. The members all knew Provinz was late; nothing had arrived in the mail. A posting here to that effect would have told them nothing. What was important was when the next edition was to be published, and we simply didn't know (although not for lack of trying to know), but always believed it would be soon. So James, if you were a director would you have posted a notice here saying anything about that? None of us on the Board thought that there was anything useful to post...we were all biting our nails, some quietly seething, in contact with Kye but not wishing to goad him, and more or less just monitoring the situation whilst relying on his promises to come through.

In the interim, what we did do was to identify the problem, which we thought was too much work for one person, and try to help solve it. Two of our number met with Kye to determine what we could do to help him and then formulated a tentative approach to assist him. We now have two guys who are prepared to work with Kye. Hopefully, Kye will allow them to do that, so that with their assistance our Mag will be published when it should be, with the same excellence of editorial content that to date it has achieved under Kye alone. This is a work in progress, and we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Honest, we're doing what we can. Please bear with us. And COME TO THE MONTHLY SOCIALS !!!

Richard, thanks for taking the time to respond. I appreciate it and i'm quite sure others will as well. It sounds frustrating all way around.

Again, thank you Richard.

Best regards, Jim

Hold up there Tex.

I said I found it annoying not that I was angry. I was annoyed due to the lack of communication to the club via our website, since that is our fastest way of passing club information around.

Also, I did not say anything negative regarding our club mag, quite the contrary it's because I do enjoy it that I was annoyed that there was no prior mention of any huge delay. It needs more tech and less wine/cheese articles imho, but that's neither here nor there. I'm enjoying Raymond Lums RSR article series.

As you likely know, one of the reasons we changed printers was to get the mag out in a more timely fashion.

As for the dinners, dressing up for sitdown suppers isn't something I enjoy but I would likely meet more club members that way. I was lucky enough to get into the 3rd IDE class this year. It was very informative and extremely professionally run. I believe I made a post here to that effect after the class. I fully expect to make more events this coming summer.

Anyways, I had to reply as you seemed to have miss my point.

Best regards,
Jim

We as a club need to decide if winning PCA Newsletter awards is our goal or is it to get timely information out to our membership. I personally believe that the latter should be our objective, even if it is on lesser quality paper and printing. I have thought this for many years and it does not reflect on Kye or any other specific editors who have tried their best.

Bill, I respectfully disagree with your opinion on the role the newsletter should serve. As for being informed of upcoming events, etc. I would look to the internet for that information, not a hard-copy mailed newsletter, and I suspect most people would as well. Online info is much more accurate, up-to-date and easy to find. I look to the newsletter for reports on events I wasn't at, pictures, stories from other members and Porsche enthusiasts and tech reports, like the ongoing prep of the Mantis Cayman.

[edited]

I think both Bill & Christian have valid points.
UCR has been blessed with exceptional Editors for Provinz who have produced a fantastic monthly magazine with very little resources and virtually no regular content contributions from the membership at large. That it has become increasingly difficult for one person to manage and produce on a monthly basis should be no surprise to anybody, regretful though it is. If we as a Club want this to continue then more people need to step up to the editorial plate and provide assistance on a regular and ongoing basis. Kye has been echoing the pleas of all Editors in the past by asking for help and content but as usual it falls on (mostly) deaf ears.

My proposal to our Board would be to compromise by producing the Provinz magazine on a Quarterly basis with reports on events, tech articles, club updates and photographs etc., but leave the promotion of events and date sensitive information (Presidents reports, Track Chairs reports, classifieds and so on) to a monthly newsletter. This could be as simple as a four page photocopied 'flyer' that if possible could be mailed without an envelope, probably at a reduced postal rate.

While I agree that the website is a fantastic source of information and news, it is not a resource that is available or convenient to everybody. Outside of the GTA there are still many areas that don't have high-speed internet (or any internet service at all) and slogging though our website on a dial-up connection can be tedious at best. We still need a monthly printed communication and I believe that if we did not, we would lose considerable revenue from PCA who send a good portion of our annual membership dues to each Region specifically to support a monthly newsletter.
Andy