Your Comments about Your Voice
We welcome your thoughts on how we are doing with Your Voice ... To give your feedback e-mail yourvoice@mun.ca
Abe Ross (Your Voice, Vol.16, No. 1, Feb. 2018)
Dear Steve
This was originally intended to be a letter of condolence, of sympathy for [your] having taken on the thankless position of editor of a newsletter. (Thankless except for those who persuaded you to take on the position.) In sympathy I was going to share with you my experiences as editor of a newsletter for the retired section of a professional association. The time spent seeking submissions; the hours spent learning desktop publishing. Then sending the newsletter out to the members and having it disappear into the ether. Only knowing that it had reached some readers because two of my friends took the time to respond to questions I asked in the newsletter. (The same two who had asked me to take on the job.) Aside from my friends, did anyone even read it? I never found out. I was going to include the story about the student organization that folded after no one showed up to hear their presentation Overcoming Student Apathy. I was going to ponder its relevance to editing a newsletter for retired folks.
But no, after the December/January newsletter this has to change from condolence to congratulations, from sympathy to envy. The newsletter was full of interesting information — not all of which was written by the editor himself to fill the pages. It had some great photographs by Gene Herzberg. And, it even had kudos from a reader who took the time to let you know that he enjoyed the website and the newsletter. There are readers out there for some newsletter editors! Keep up the good work. Like Vance Maxwell, I am far from St. John’s. Like him, I too look forward to future issues of Your Voice.
Abe Ross
Dr. Vance Maxwell (Your Voice, Vol. 15, No. 7, Dec. 2017)
I want to congratulate all of the devoted volunteers of Your Voice for having created a beautiful MUNPA web site. It draws one into its various sections and doings. I especially enjoyed reading the Halloween reminiscences, and recall the doings of us children in my village in Nova Scotia, including fire works and high jinks like putting a burning tire in the middle of the road, and overturning out houses. These usually brought visits from the RCMP to survey matters, but with no arrests or charges, since the perpetrators would have long disappeared into the gothic darkness protecting us all. I look forward to future issues of Your Voice, though I’m now retired and far from St. John’s. I send greetings to you all and I send you all best Holiday and New Year’s wishes.
Vance Maxwell, Philosophy, (Ret.) (but still researching, writing and publishing).