Issue 5?

[Advent Childhe]

Greetings:

What happened to Issue 5?

Why weren't many of the contributors told of its existence?

I found out during the day of Anime North when Justin was handing it out. What is this?

Are we running a real magazine here? What happened in the lines of conmmunications?

Where is the organization?

If, in fact, that we are trying to ensure the quality of every issue that we do put out there, would it not be wiser if more people were given a chance to contribute?


For the Riptide Project,
Advent Childhe,

PS: For the people that actually did get their stuff on there, congrats on a job well done.

[Pocket]

I'm not sure if your questions are rhetorical or what but as important as it is to find the source of the problem to prevent it from happening again in the future, there's a difference between isolating the problem and random finger pointing.

It's a shame that a lot of people were left out of the loop (I don't remember where and when I heard about issue 5) but this problem probably won't be repeated with the next issue. Sometimes you forget that the things that you know, others don't necessarily know too. It's definitely something that CP will need to work on but you know that nothing is ever perfect and CP is still relatively new.

[barry lam]

Issue 5 is at my house, 5 heavy ass boxes, i need people to come to my house on thursday at 5:00 so we can break them open and distribute them. I even forgot they were there.

[Genevieve]

Distribute them? I thought we were going to keep this issue to distribute in September. It being summer, I'm pretty sure most if not all of the campus newstands get cleared off regularly. I'd hate to see all these issues get thrown in the trash because they're out of season. I was under the impression we'd wait with distribution until closer to the start of school. But maybe I just misunderstood.

As to Issue 5... I remember back in January an email went out to the layout staff about a meeting for planning the next issue. Otherwise I wouldn't have known about it either. I agree there have definitely been some communication problems within the organisation this year which have been quite frustrating. Hopefully these issues will be addressed at the meeting on Thursday. Which reminds me: should we have someone taking minutes on Thursday? It might make it easier to keep everyone in the loop who's unable to come out.

Also, I'm not sure if I should wait to mention this until the meeting, but since the discussion is related to it already, I will. I've thought of one possible thing we could do that might help clear the communication backlog, but being relatively non-technical I'm not sure how feasible it is: What if we had a sidebar or something on the main website where the admin team could make announcements about important dates or events. By making a sort of "official low-down" bulletin board or calendar somewhere, we'd be able to centralise all of our logistics and people would know precisely where to look for the definitive summary of what's going on with CP. I think one of our biggest problems this year has been that too many people have been operating blind with respect to everyone else.

By making one central "calendar" for CP that everyone can consult and where all official and tentative dates/goals can be posted would help immensely. Furthermore, I think that ALL of the admin team should have posting rights on this calendar in order to ensure a timely flow of information to everyone; if there's only one person with posting rights and we all have to wait for them to get around to posting everything that goes on the calendar, there is again high risk of backlog re-occuring, especially if the post-right person is having a busy time of semester.

[LAM LAM LAM]

genny, umm okay that sounds like a better idea

err....can you drop by my house around 5:15, help me lift these boxes to the eng. com room?

my parents need the space in the house since we're opening up a second store at dragon city. We sell tea leaves in bulk so if any of you ever have a nasty urge for tea, me hook u up

[Genevieve]

Okay, sure. One thing we should clear with Jenn though is if we actually ARE allowed to store them in Eng Com over the summer. If not, I have a couple of ideas. Barring those ideas, my place is up at the corner of Bloor and Spadina. It'd be a tight fit but if I need to I can store a couple of boxes at my place over the summer. I've also got a couple of freinds in the area. I'm sure we can figure something out.

EDIT: Sorry for all of these edits, but I just wanted to say that unless anyone objects I'll start putting together a tentative rough agenda for tomorrow's meeting. It started out as just me jotting down a few things that I wanted to remember for the meeting, but I've gotten the notion it might actually serve a useful function if I spruce it up a bit now. So, whether or not you're actually interested in using/reading it, I'll post my agenda here before tomorrow's meeting in case anyone's interested.

[Liz]

Yeah, I talked to Jenn today and she said that it's not good to leave too many boxes at engcom. So we'll probably have to figure something out tomorrow? If it's just for one or two days, we can probably store a box or two at our division common room too.

Oh, and I have some ideas regarding announcement-posting too. Since I didn't know about the 5th issue deadline, I can see how that would help getting the words to everybody... but I guess I'll leave that til the meeting tomorrow for discussion?

Wow another store at Dragon City? That's great news! ... Does that mean free tea leave packs for everybody ?

[Edit] Oh yeah and I forgot to mention: there will be meeting minute taken tomorrow . Since we're sending out the candidate speech summary to everyone afterwards, the minute will be on there too.

[Genevieve]

Okay, for anyone who's interested, here's the agenda-thingumy I put together. Again, I'm not trying to be official or anything; it was just something I was writing out for myself and then thought others might find it useful, too, so I spruced it up.

gensovereign.virtue.nu/Agenda200606.doc

[Suz]

“hellloooo??.....*kerrch*….hell-*fizzle*-ooo??...*crack*….communication systems…*spaz*…..are down…*be-ep*….I repeat communication syste….*shwap*… down!!”

LOL ;D

Anywaz…I think the calendar/agenda thingy is a really good idea, then I wouldn’t be out of the loop so often. Organization is the key to success!!

[Genevieve]

Barry: How about we wait until after the meeting to get those boxes? That way we'll maximise the possibility of great storage ideas for the summer, pre-hassle.

Also: Ah, crap. I just realised that I can't hotlink to that file. Stupid free account. Anyways, I'll print off a couple of copies and bring them to tonight's meeting. Also, here it is in non-Word format:

Agenda: Crumpled Paper General Meeting
Date: Thursday, June 8th
Time: 18:00 hrs
Location: 801 Bay Street


1. Editor introduces the meeting & its scope:

• What issues will be discussed at this meeting?
  
• What decisions will be made by the end of this meeting?
  
• What action items need be delivered in what timeframe after this meeting?
  

2. Floor is opened to any requests for modification of or addition to the aforementioned


3. General election of the CP administration team for the 2006-2007 academic year:

• Field any questions or concerns regarding the positions
  
• Discuss any changes to the administrative structure for the coming year where necessary
  
• Presentation of candidate platforms
  
• Voting by secret ballot (presumably)
  

4. Discussion:

• What are the major concerns of contributors and staff this year?
  
• Highlight any general problems, difficulties or areas of concern:
  --> Website calendar for admin team to post dates, where ALL admin have posting ability
  
• Editor: How does the magazine stand at present?
  --> Financially?
  --> In terms of sponsorship?
  --> Are we still part of Eng Soc? If not, how can we regain our Eng Soc status?
  
• The main website has been down for approx. a month:
  -->What has Eng Soc said the problem is and will this be a continuing problem?
  -->Should we look into getting our own domain?
  
• Entertain any ideas regarding recruitment methods for the coming year
  
• Fundraising suggestions or comments?
  

Action Items:
a. Minutes to be taken for this and the balance of general meetings.
b. Make sure group adjourns with a clear task list, including names and the due dates.

[Advent Childhe]

Greetings:

I am glad to see that work has been done to adress the issues within the Magazine it self.

I wonder what our glorious head Editor has to say about this surprise issue that left even Liz out of the picture.

Unfortunately I could not have attended the General meeting. Work has consumed my hours both in the day and night. I do hope that these issues have been addressed.

What would our leader do to help this situation I wonder? I wonder indeed (grin).


For the Riptide Project,
Advent Childhe,

[Genna]

This was said at the meeting and repeated/elaborated here.

Crumpled Paper collects submissions on a continual basis - at ALL times. (so you'll notice a few artists who have even less of a clue on timelines and such of the magazine, who got their artwork into this issue.) Moreover, layout is usually done on a continual basis over MONTHS. For this last issue, there really wasn't a set deadline - more like a window of months. But having collected quite a few submissions, the layout being pretty complete, and feeling an obligation (including to Tokyo Grill) to print, we considered what this issue can do (see immediately below), gathered up what we had, and printed.

Since this was more or less, a "surprise issue", it had a short run (1000 fewer copies than previous issues), and even fewer pages than the reduced pages we introduced this year (we have to reduce by a set number of pages each time - so we maxed out the number of pages this time as well, and did in fact turn away submissions). Moreover, it's a summer issue, which can be distributed at conventions and such. Hopefully the rest of the copies will be distributed in September alongside the new full blown issue that the new exec can head. I suspected as well, that this new issue would not be done for beginning of school (especially since recruitment was so heavily discussed - I would imagine that new blood would need to be injected into the new issue), and now we have an issue on hand to be distributed at Frosh week and other promotional events. All in all, it will be a very positive issue, and it turned out to be quite a beautiful one. additional submissions would have been likely diverted to the Fall issue.

People who submitted were I suppose those who were more eager and kept in touch and in communication with layouters, or knew someone who was in communication with layouters indirectly. Though this covers most people, this is hardly ideal. CP grew from a word of mouth, informal tradition, and though has grown, kept this up quite a bit unfortunately. However it should be noted that technically CP is always working on the next issue, and there were three issues planned from the get go (that this issue was coming should have been known), and those who want to get there stuff in may try and be more proactive themselves. The idea that people are deadline driven (so even though they may have nothing to submit, may put something together before the deadline) and don't think about the fact that the third issue is getting worked on (over most of second semester), was brought up and acknowledged.

Communication was heavily discussed at the meeting and appears to be a primary concern. Lots of positive ideas were brought forth on alternate systems and discussed at length, which I expect the new exec will consider and implement. I wish the new exec best of luck in increasing organization! In fact, I have confidence that they will!

[Advent Childhe]

Greetings:

I am glad to hear that the issue with communications was under heavy disscussing this time round. However, communications must originate from proper organization. No matter in what way or how the magazine has grown, the orgainization must be able to enforce its own rules and at the same time abide by them.

For example, being a member of the editorial staff requires one to be able to edit the submissions and make sure that the quality of the material is high. As the leader of the magazine, one must be able to forsee the requirements of every department, and not wait for things to come on their own. This is a good thing, I believe for the new Head Editors to keep in mind.

With good organization, any goal in any direction can be reached. Proper planning can make sure that the things that the organization needs to do is done; and with certain things "tacked down" proper communications can be made to ensure that all members of the staff are alerted of events and requirements. A deadline is not a punishment, nor is the removal of it. A deadline is merely an alert for those who have a responsibility in this fine organization, so that not only people who are "in the know" may have a chance at publishing their fine work. I am sure that the morale and enthusiasm of the entire staff would spring back to life if they knew what the Head Staff were planning. In short the submitters and/or Staff member would have been in a better situation had their proactive actions were not spent on asking: "Is there going to be a next issue? When is the update? Why doesn't any one know anything?" Keep in mind, Barry and Pocket, that this is the sign of a disorganizaed organization!

With the proper planning in mind, and with the right tools at hand, there will be no "surpise issues" -- for ever issue would be an awesome issue.


For the Riptide Project,
Advent Childhe,