I would like to address the very unfortunate delay in the delivery of our diaries. We ordered our diaries in very good time for delivery with the October magazine, at roughly the middle of September. During the journey from China the ship had an on board fire – something that no person can predict. Fortunately, no one on the ship nor our diaries were hurt or damaged, and after repairs the ship arrived in the UK in early October, well after the magazines were delivered. Clearly, this was an unwanted problem for us, and very unsatisfactory for those of our members who use the EBU diary heavily. We considered sending the diaries out directly to members, but the cost would have been hugely prohibitive. Each diary, packed in an envelope that would prevent damage to the diary, would have cost £1.10 per diary, plus staff costs. With well over 40,000 being delivered it is easy arithmetic to see why this was a non starter. Although lightning rarely strikes twice, we are taking action to attempt to prevent any delays next year. The diaries will be delivered to us a month earlier.
As a footnote, we purchased our diaries from Collins-Debden, one of the largest providers of diaries in the UK. They have their own company in China and the vast majority of their diaries are printed there.
We have just about reached the point where we will be switching off our old website for good. We are also working on ensuring that we have an electronic archive of our results, as far back as we can. Alert members will have noted that we have added more very old EBU publications to the web site, something that we will be continuing to do into the future. As many of you will be aware, we are now providing access to the latest magazines as well, but only via your member’s area. We are also investigating allowing the magazine to be downloaded to tablets, such as the IPAD and Nexus 7.
We have some good news on the affiliation front; this year has seen a number of clubs join for the first time or rejoin since they left prior to Universal Membership. We are hoping for a few more in the near future as well.
Peter Stockdale, our new Communications Officer started a few weeks ago and he is always anxious to help with publicity if it is in our power to do so. He can be contacted by email at peter.stockdale@ebu.co.uk.
