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       MORE QUESTIONS FOR UCUGA


 Gaelyne Gasson:

<<First of all, if a User Group joins
UGUGA, does that mean it's news letter
MUST become part of the Digest, or can
the group continue to publish it's own
newsletter?>>


 K. Dale Sidebottom:

  No. Yes.


 Gaelyne:

<<In the situation above, would there
be any advantage at all for the
joining UCUGA?>>

    It all depends on the club's
situation. Often, the club editor is
tired of carrying the responsibilities
all alone. UCUGA becomes a valued
resource for helping him/her find
substantive material to improve the
club's own publication.

    If the club finds no problem
publishing its own newsletter, then
there might be little advantage to
UCUGA, other than a cheap way to
advertise itself across the Commodore
world each and every month. ;-)


 Gaelyne:

<<For user groups that are members, do
you send them X number of copies of
the digest, or do they receive just
one copy that they have to reproduce
on their own?>>


 Dale:

    Rolf answered this question,
though not directly. For $25 a year,
the club receives one issue a month.
It can duplicate and distribute it to
its members, or for $15/member/year,
UCUGA will do that service for the
club. It is as if the club buys
individual memberships for its members
in order to save itself the hassle of
printing, mailing, etc.

    Frankly, $15 for 12 issues of 12
pages each is a very, very fair deal.
I doubt many can duplicate and mail
the Digest for such a low price.


 Gaelyne:

<<Some rumours/grumbles I've heard is
that UCUGA is in direct competition
with other User Groups that are
struggling now as it is. How do you
respond to this?>>


 Dale:

  Rolf answered this at length. I
would only say that Rolf is president
of his club; I am president of mine.
Neither of us wants to do anything to
hurt user groups at the grassroots
level. UCUGA, as he and I have
envisioned it, is intended to empower
them instead!


 Gaelyne:

<<For articles in the Digest, do you
note what User Group the author
belongs to, or does it just list the
author only? (If you hadn't
considered, I like knowing what group
an author/article is from).>>


 Dale:

    We list the author only. I never
even considered listing the author's
user group...in part, perhaps, because
many authors are members of more than
one user group. I, for instance, am a
member of LUCKI and the MailLink.
Linda Tanner who is president of the
MailLink group is also a member of
LUCKI! :-/ It can get to be a little
tricky, and most authors understand my
desire to avoid needless hassles. If
an author WANTS to list his/her club,
we do intend to print it, however.


 Gaelyne:

<<Now that I've seen two issues of the
Digest, I only have two criticisms.>>

<<The first is that the User Group
information for the different member
groups is in the middle of the Digest.
Having this information in a
consistent place - either the
beginning or the back makes sense. I
would prefer the beginning as nearly
every newsletter from these groups has
always had this information on the
second page. I know they wouldn't fit
there now, but right after would make
sense.>>

<<My other 'complaint' is continuing
articles several pages from the
original which makes it hard to
follow.>>


 Dale:

    If the newsletter represents only
one club, it is easy to put the
information inside the cover. Since
UCUGA lists several member clubs, the
info follows the introductory page(s),
which seems logical. If readers
prefer, it could easily go at the end,
but I thought by putting it right
after the introductory page(s), it
would be more likely that the reader
would actually look the member clubs
over before going on to the "meat" of
the issue, the exciting articles! If
inside the last page, I am guessing it
would be easier to ignore. However, it
is open to discussion and change. :-)

 [Dave's Intercession:] With multiple
clubs, someone would certainly not be
in the "best" position, whether front
or back. According to church
newsletter gurus, the front and back
are the most important pages, and
should be used for information for the
greatest number of readers. In a local
club newsletter, the Who, Where, and
When would certainly be front or back
page material. But UCUGA is has
readers from various clubs. I will put
my two cents worth in, though --
Yellow Pages! for club specifics.


 Now back to Dale:

    As to "continuing" articles on
other pages, I religiously endeavor to
put information at the bottom of the
pages telling the reader where to find
the remainder of the article. The
inconvenience of such "continued"
articles is one of the realities of
publishing. The majority of newspapers
and magazines do this without apology.
Currently, so do I.


 K. Dale Sidebottom
 Publishing Editor of UCUGA's
 Commodore Digest

 Gaelyne Gasson, Our Lady of Commodore
Computing!