[MR] Re: acorn

[Tom Rettie & Heather Bryden]

On Jan 4, 2005, at 11:47 PM, david wendelken wrote:

> I went back and checked the SCA membership form just to be sure, and 
> the SCA sells a "newsletter" with it's membership - not a "club 
> magazine".  As such, it should contain "news" not "history".
>
> If we **know when we sell it** that a purchased membership AS IT IS 
> SOLD BY THE SCA is unlikely to receive "news" rather than "historical 
> data" in the "newsletter", then I would argue that the SCA is at 
> fault.  The SCA set up the deadlines and the process that we use with 
> 3rd class mail, not the post office.  The post office offers a service 
> and we have chosen to use it wrong.

Andras raises a valid point. Kingdom policy reads:

"6.11.5   Mailing Requirements

Newsletters should be mailed by the 25th of the preceding month so that 
they reach the populace by the first of the month that the newsletter 
covers (i.e. - the 25th of December for the January issue). This 
deadline may be pushed back a week for those groups that hold their 
business meeting the last week of the month."

It would seem that the intention of this policy was that members (not 
just first class subscribers) would receive their newsletters in a 
timely fashion. If that's not happening, the SCA (or at least our 
kingdom) needs to reexamine the policy, our business processes, and the 
effect they have to determine if changes are needed.

The newsletter publication process changed from our traditional model 
when we outsourced production and mailing. We now have what the 
business wonks would call a "multi-threaded supply chain" that involves 
at least five parties (the kingdom, SCA Inc., the printer, the mailing 
house, and USPS). Any time you outsource services, there is a potential 
for unintended outcomes, especially if you don't have a lot of 
visibility into the vendors' processes, and vendors will rarely if ever 
admit they aren't doing what they're supposed to.

This is not about finding fault with individuals, it's about fixing 
business processes that don't work as intended.

With respect,

Fin


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Tom Rettie      tom at his.com