Plans. I hear they’re made to be broken.
Ben: “My personal goal is to have an initial paper edition [of a local Pagan newsletter] available for distribution at Atlanta Pagan Pride on Sunday, 5 October.”
World: “Atlanta Pagan Pride is canceled [for 2008].”
Well, my original idea was that PPD would be an ideal place to introduce a new newsletter. At this rate, if PPD runs (I’m not giving up gently) then I’ll probably have a hand in it and thus won’t have the time to produce a newsletter anyway. So that changes plans a bit.
I had an awesome chat with another local leader last night. (Lots o’ those chats lately. It really gives me hope that something big is starting to grow in the local pagan community.) Last night’s chat was about the newsletter. Without the deadline of PPD, we’re starting up a little more carefully and with a little more consideration. Two fundamental choices we’re considering are:
Paper or electronic. Paper feels real. It’s something you can hold in your hand rather than just another chunk of bits to get lost in your spam filter or another website to forget to visit. Electronic, on the other hand, can be a lot cheaper and easier to manage. It’s especially well‐suited to information resources like a calendar or contact information or news events, which are exactly the sort of thing that this project is meant to communicate and share. Right now I’m personally leaning slightly toward live electronic media with an option to produce physical media from some of our content periodically.
Profit or non-profit. This is a tougher one. We’re likely going to incorporate at some point-for continuity and stability if nothing else-and we’re working on where that fits into the Grand Timeline. (Reference above note about plans and breakage.) So we’re considering whether it makes sense to incorporate as a profit or non‐profit corporation. The decision doesn‘t have to be made immediately, of course, but it decides where the money comes from. Money dictates direction, so it has some important influence on what the newsletter might look like in five or six years and beyond. That’s a good kind of decision to make earlier rather than later, so it’s on my mind. Personally I‘m leaning slightly toward non‐profit and drawing from volunteer effort and donations rather than dealing with selling advertising space. There are some thoughts hiding in there on the economics of information, but I still need to settle on them a bit.
Mind you, this is all very much up in the air right now. We’re working toward a concrete plan for how to make this newsletter happen. With the PPD deadline now gone, we’re switching from frenetic to deliberate, making something to last instead of getting something on paper quickly. This post is just me babbling so my friends know what I’m up to, and so that they can contribute their wisdom and experience to the effort.
That last bit is a hint. Tell me what you think. ;-)
World: “Atlanta Pagan Pride is canceled [for 2008].”
Well, my original idea was that PPD would be an ideal place to introduce a new newsletter. At this rate, if PPD runs (I’m not giving up gently) then I’ll probably have a hand in it and thus won’t have the time to produce a newsletter anyway. So that changes plans a bit.
I had an awesome chat with another local leader last night. (Lots o’ those chats lately. It really gives me hope that something big is starting to grow in the local pagan community.) Last night’s chat was about the newsletter. Without the deadline of PPD, we’re starting up a little more carefully and with a little more consideration. Two fundamental choices we’re considering are:
Paper or electronic. Paper feels real. It’s something you can hold in your hand rather than just another chunk of bits to get lost in your spam filter or another website to forget to visit. Electronic, on the other hand, can be a lot cheaper and easier to manage. It’s especially well‐suited to information resources like a calendar or contact information or news events, which are exactly the sort of thing that this project is meant to communicate and share. Right now I’m personally leaning slightly toward live electronic media with an option to produce physical media from some of our content periodically.
Profit or non-profit. This is a tougher one. We’re likely going to incorporate at some point-for continuity and stability if nothing else-and we’re working on where that fits into the Grand Timeline. (Reference above note about plans and breakage.) So we’re considering whether it makes sense to incorporate as a profit or non‐profit corporation. The decision doesn‘t have to be made immediately, of course, but it decides where the money comes from. Money dictates direction, so it has some important influence on what the newsletter might look like in five or six years and beyond. That’s a good kind of decision to make earlier rather than later, so it’s on my mind. Personally I‘m leaning slightly toward non‐profit and drawing from volunteer effort and donations rather than dealing with selling advertising space. There are some thoughts hiding in there on the economics of information, but I still need to settle on them a bit.
Mind you, this is all very much up in the air right now. We’re working toward a concrete plan for how to make this newsletter happen. With the PPD deadline now gone, we’re switching from frenetic to deliberate, making something to last instead of getting something on paper quickly. This post is just me babbling so my friends know what I’m up to, and so that they can contribute their wisdom and experience to the effort.
That last bit is a hint. Tell me what you think. ;-)