[NAFEX] POMONA and the E-List
William C. Garthright
billg at inebraska.com
Sun Feb 17 22:42:44 EST 2008
Very interesting, Lon. Thanks for the background!
> The effect on POMONA is that a much smaller percentage of people write
> articles for it now, even though the by-laws contain a clause that
> members are expected to contribute something at least every other year
> or so.
> Most members are afraid to write for POMONA now, thinking they aren't
> "good enough" and this attitude has stifled the magazine.
That certainly applies to me. I'm a complete newbie at fruit-growing,
and I'd never expect to have valuable information to share in *Pomona*.
But I do post on this list (too much, no doubt). I ask questions, I try
to share my experiences (such as they are), and I even try to answer
questions, if I can (mostly, if I've asked the same thing previously or
discovered it independently on the Internet). This list is not nearly as
intimidating as an article in a magazine would be.
So it does seem like this list serves the same purpose as the original
round robin letters, and even the original purpose of *Pomona*. And
considering that *Pomona* is far and away the biggest expense of NAFEX -
pretty much our ONLY big expense, according to that treasurer's report -
perhaps it needs to evolve. But I don't know what I'd suggest. I didn't
join NAFEX to get *Pomona*, since this list works well enough for me.
But if we have 1,500 members, but only 500 - not all members - subscribe
to this email list, then *Pomona* must be the only source of NAFEX
information for the vast majority of us (I believe those figures are
what I've seen here, correct?).
One suggestion, though - we might want to make a bigger effort to
promote this email list - or the forum, if that's what you really decide
to do - in *Pomona* itself. If our members aren't using this list,
they're really missing out on a great deal. I know the list's URL is
printed in *Pomona*, but we might want to do more than that. That's not
exactly a solution to anything, but it's probably something that should
be done, don't you think?
Bill
--
There is no spirit-driven life force, no throbbing, heaving,
pullulating, protoplasmic, mystic jelly. Life is just bytes and bytes
and bytes of digital information. - Richard Dawkins
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