Hi Bill:
Thank you for recognizing by proactive and positive approach to help promote and distribute information about the magazine. I appreciate it and appreciate your efforts as well. I did not know that all of the items in question were dicussed for months in great detail by the committes you mentioned. A lot of people do not know of the details that go on and the only place that I see any published decisions are the Executive Committee minutes posted on this website and they don't necessarly address the questions that I had.
Also in the last issue of SWIM there was no mention of the new publication that would be going to the membership and this caused mass confusion to people that are not as well informed and don't use the website as an information source as others in USMS. This caused considerable problems with people being confused and paying for a subscription to SPI and being disappointed with that magazine features. To top it off because they made a subscription to that magazine and did not pay attention to the lead time some have not received that one either. Since those same swimmers have not received USMS Swimmer because its late getting out, they are wondering what is going on. Plus 2004 USMS swimmers that are not registered yet got the magazine free and yet newely registered swimmers who paid for the 2005 year cannot get one. They see the name Bill Volckening in both magazines (SWIM JAN/FEB 2005 and USMS Swimmer) and think we as USMS are responsible. I answer everyone and set the record straight as best as I can except when I don't whats going on, hence the questions.
I have two suggestions for improvement to help myself and people that are confused, miss informed, and don't what has gone on or what is going to go on in the future.
Publish the minutes of the meetings of the USMS Transition Team and the USMS Swimmer Editoral Board if its ok and does not breach confidentiality. I know there was a meeting February 9 and if I saw those minutes I might have not had all the questions I had. This way people could see the decisions that set the policy, monitor the progress, and integrate all USMS publishing activities. Basically the teams look idential with the exception of the Sponsor Liason not being on the Editoral Board.
Also if its not to much of an effort, have a web page either created like the "USMS Task Force on Structure and Governance" or have all of the publication posts together. As an example take posts like "2004 USMS Convention Notice", "Swim Magazine What Happen", "Poll USMS Magazine", and "New Swimmer Magazine". This way I can direct people to the whole story of this and it would save a lot of time of the Editoral Board to responding to posts like today with Matt Shirley. Jim and Lynn answered questions with excellent answers and people could learn why we did what we did.
I hope that these are proactive and positve suggestions to help better improve communication and make the new publication prosper. Again I appreciate all of the efforts of the people involved in the success of the new publication.
Hi Bill:
Thank you for recognizing by proactive and positive approach to help promote and distribute information about the magazine. I appreciate it and appreciate your efforts as well. I did not know that all of the items in question were dicussed for months in great detail by the committes you mentioned. A lot of people do not know of the details that go on and the only place that I see any published decisions are the Executive Committee minutes posted on this website and they don't necessarly address the questions that I had.
Also in the last issue of SWIM there was no mention of the new publication that would be going to the membership and this caused mass confusion to people that are not as well informed and don't use the website as an information source as others in USMS. This caused considerable problems with people being confused and paying for a subscription to SPI and being disappointed with that magazine features. To top it off because they made a subscription to that magazine and did not pay attention to the lead time some have not received that one either. Since those same swimmers have not received USMS Swimmer because its late getting out, they are wondering what is going on. Plus 2004 USMS swimmers that are not registered yet got the magazine free and yet newely registered swimmers who paid for the 2005 year cannot get one. They see the name Bill Volckening in both magazines (SWIM JAN/FEB 2005 and USMS Swimmer) and think we as USMS are responsible. I answer everyone and set the record straight as best as I can except when I don't whats going on, hence the questions.
I have two suggestions for improvement to help myself and people that are confused, miss informed, and don't what has gone on or what is going to go on in the future.
Publish the minutes of the meetings of the USMS Transition Team and the USMS Swimmer Editoral Board if its ok and does not breach confidentiality. I know there was a meeting February 9 and if I saw those minutes I might have not had all the questions I had. This way people could see the decisions that set the policy, monitor the progress, and integrate all USMS publishing activities. Basically the teams look idential with the exception of the Sponsor Liason not being on the Editoral Board.
Also if its not to much of an effort, have a web page either created like the "USMS Task Force on Structure and Governance" or have all of the publication posts together. As an example take posts like "2004 USMS Convention Notice", "Swim Magazine What Happen", "Poll USMS Magazine", and "New Swimmer Magazine". This way I can direct people to the whole story of this and it would save a lot of time of the Editoral Board to responding to posts like today with Matt Shirley. Jim and Lynn answered questions with excellent answers and people could learn why we did what we did.
I hope that these are proactive and positve suggestions to help better improve communication and make the new publication prosper. Again I appreciate all of the efforts of the people involved in the success of the new publication.
