Our Guild has gone digital. But our digital infrastructure (particularly the member site) is not without issue. Expenditures have been higher in the past year and also will be going forward. To compensate, our budget (i.e. General Fund) was adjusted in February by shifting some money away from our publications to our website activities.
The Journal is an important publication and part of our education mission. As such, we have been spending three quarters of our member dues on the Journal for each of the past seven years. However, our two websites and TouchUps are central to the operation of the Guild.
Without infinite resources, we needed to rebalance our spending. After this year, we expect approximately half of our dues to be allocated to The Journal, one quarter to our internet activities and one quarter to everything else. We also expect to run a surplus for the foreseeable future.
This means a reduced annual page count for The Journal. We also will discontinue printing of The Old Saw. As I explained at the General Meeting on April 23, The Journal would be cut 20% ... 96 vs our traditional 120 pages annually. We also plan to drop the summer issue leaving us with two issues at 48 pages each in the spring and fall.
Now the good news! I have dealt with part owner Michael Ames at PuritanPress (now PuritanCapital) since our first issue. This past Friday, Michael contacted me to say he was cutting our costs for our current and future issues by 13%. This is our second cost reduction in the past two years. The savings come from his increased usage and therefore lower fees per page he pays on Puritan's digital press.
The Steering Committee considers The Journal as a signature piece for the Guild. We will apply the cost reduction money from Puritan to add back some of the page count we cut in February. We have 48 pages in the current spring issue (it hit the post office last week) and will do 56 pages in the fall. Next year we will do both issues at 56 pages each. Total page count this year will be 104...under budget. Total page count next year and beyond will be 112...at budget.
I have an article on this for The Old Saw which needs updating. I expect to have it and the new Old Saw Articles page (see below) up on the website in another couple of weeks.
Jim Seroskie - Editor
Please be aware that there is a scammer answering these ads. Be careful!!!!
I recommend that you only take CASH or checks from people you know. Very little of the stuff that is advertised is so rare or such a great deal that someone would hire an “agent” to ship it.
BE CAREFUL!!!!
Peter
If you are selling something online, as a business or through classifieds ads, you may be targeted by an overpayment scam.
The scammer will contact you, make you an offer—often quite generous—then make payment through credit card or cheque. They will be for an amount that is greater than the agreed price.
The scammer will contact you with an apology for the overpayment, offering a fake excuse. The scammer might tell you that the extra money was included to cover agent’s fees or extra shipping costs. Or they may just say they simply made a mistake when writing the cheque.
The scammer will then ask you to refund the excess amount or they will ask for you to forward the amount through to a third party. They will ask for this to through an online banking transfer, pre-loaded money card, or a wire transfer such as Western Union. You then discover that their cheque has bounced or the credit card had been a stolen or fake card.
A newer variation on this scam involves online sales, usually through classified sites, where the scammer pretends to have made a payment for a larger than agreed amount through services such as PayPal by sending a fake receipt of payment. The scammer will claim that the money is being held until you forward on the extra money.
If you send any money, you will not get it back. If you have already sent the ‘sold’ item you will lose this as well. At the very least, the scammer will have wasted your time and prevented you from accepting any legitimate offers on your sale.
I just wanted other Sellers to be careful as I see some valuable machines for sale here.