North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

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