We have been following comments made about the lateness of the magazine on this bulletin board, and have received phones calls about it too. Although there was always a problem with timely delivery in places like California when we were mailing the magazine from Fort Dodge, Iowa, it appears to have become an even greater problem elsewhere, especially in the mid-West not so far from where the magazines are currently mailed (Peoria, Illinois).

The magazine committee met last week, today, and will be meeting next week, working to improve our performance. We don't like late magazines any more than you do. The following are five steps, 4 of them with firm implementation dates. These are furnished for your information and are taken directly from the committee meeting minutes.

1. Print information on the outside of the magazine’s envelope identifying it as a magazine, with words something like “January-February issue of the ACMOC Magazine”. This will be effective with Issue 79, which will be mailed on or about May 2, 2008. (The envelopes for Issue 78 have already been printed.)

2. Print on the envelope for the Postmaster’s information that ACMOC is requesting return service if undeliverable. This also will be effective with Issue 79, which will be mailed on or about May 2, 2008. (The envelopes for Issue 78 have already been printed.) It was noted at the meeting that the class of mail most of our magazines are mailed in, 3rd class, does not have “free” return service included in the postage, and if the envelopes are not deliverable because someone moved, etc., that we are never notified of the problem. It will cost us about 75 cents for each returned magazine.

3. Post the member-free advertisements that appear in the magazine on the club’s Internet website in a members-only accessible area. Although our current software and current lack of a password for each member will not permit us to create a members-only area on our current bulletin board, with the introduction of a new Internet website bulletin board, to be effective on or about March 31, 2008, we will implement this posting of advertisements for members only. Each member will be assigned his or her own password to use to gain access to the advertisements that appear in the magazine. The committee will have to discuss when the ads should be released to the bulletin board. We can do this as we receive the ads for publication in the magazine, when the magazine is mailed, or a set number of days after the magazine is mailed.

4. Inquire into the cost of having the magazine distributed in bulk by private carrier (such as FedEx) to several regional mailing facilities across the country, so that the magazines are mailed the same day in several regional areas in the U.S. to speed their timely delivery no matter where in the U.S. the addressee may reside. Jenny offered that Multi-Ad will have the number and weight of the packages for the different regions that will be secured during the mailing of Issue 78, and will assist us in securing appropriate cost figures from various private carriers with whom they deal. Once we have the costs, we as a committee can weigh the option and make a recommendation to the board of directors on this option. Jenny will have a conference call on February 27, 2008, to discuss this matter with Multi-Ad.

5. Continue to pursue Periodical Rate for mailing our magazines. We can not submit our application for such rate to the Postal Service until we have a name for our magazine, and the magazine is actually published with the name on it. (These are Postal Service rules.) Issue 79 will have the magazine’s new name on it. The new name will not be chosen until after March 1, 2008, since the members were given until then to submit their choice of a new name to the magazine’s editor. Once Issue 79 has been mailed (on or about May 2, 2008), we will submit our application to the Postal Service.

Sounds like things are moving in the right direction.

Thank for the update, sounds like your going in the right direction.
Jim

Old Yellow Iron:p

Thanks for being pro-active in trying to fix this concern, and also for keeping us informed!

GeeeDubyar
GuddayM8

Re: 3. Post the member-free advertisements that appear in the magazine on the club’s Internet website in a members-only accessible area.

Dunno if it's necessary
@ times when I clik on this forum it has unlogged me but I'm free to look @ all the posts but any pics uploaded to the BB hardrive is not viewable until I login where the pics normally B, is just the software code for the upload
so then 2 get the pic posted U must log in
so I see this as an automatic priveledge for the members to see the pics only when they have logged in
so I presume th@ this also could B the case of advertisemnts if placed in a picture format.
as an example I'll post this dummy ad
only people logged in should B able to read the ad
all others should only see BB code instead of Ad
try logging out then view this post again
ButEyeDoSt&2BCorrected
Jist my 2 cents worth from the udder side of the world
LOL
cya
§wishy
HasBeen

Swishy, you old devil!! Brilliant. But the problem is we register folks for this site whether or not they are members of the club. GWH

It is possible to setup a forum here that is only visible and accessible to the current subscribers. I can direct you to several forums that have this feature implemented if interested.

For 3 or 4 months now every time I turn my set on I have to log in to get to the acmoc site and sometimes if I still have the set on and go to another site like ACME and then back I have to log in again but doesn,t happen everytime.It gets to be a pain. It started all at once, one day it was ok and the next day I turned it on and have to log in ever since that day.

SJ, sounds like your computer has changed its own settings about keeping passwords and cookies. Mine scrambles my preferences every time it updates itself.

I can't guide you to the place to check it, but it should be something like internet settings in a Settings or Tools button on the top of Internet explorer. May also be simple as lowering the general security level of the Internet Explorer settings.