THE WAY THE BALL BOUNCES - BY ROGER MONTANDON

 

The June IJA Newsletter brought the completely unexpected but highly appreciated Honorary Life Member status. It has occurred to me that this might be the officers' hint that I ought to get busy and send in more or at least better material for the Newsletter. Or perhaps such a title gives me the privilege to present from time to time my ideas of what's right and what's wrong with IJA.

 

When you think about it. there has to be plenty that is right or a retativety small organization like ours couldn't be on its second 25 years of continuous existence. I think that proves beyond any doubt that IJA has an Important function to perform for Jugglers and that Jugglers want such an organization.

 

In my opinion the Newsletter is the most important function of IJA for it has the responsibility of holding the interest of present members and, what is more important, producing a publication that would encourage both new members and the re-instatement of former members who have dropped out for one reason or another. At one time IJA membership was around 300. I wouldn't feel it wise to sign up members just to get the membership up but there certainly should be a good number of genuinely interested Jugglers that have dropped out and could be brought back into active membership. And the way to do it Is to put out a publication that is so important, so full of news, ideas, and pictures that they just have to have it!

 

Now comes the $64 question. How do you make the IJA Newsletter so good that former and new members can't resist joinlng? Most importantly, YOU (each member) have to help by sending in material to the editor. If you were to ask Ken Benge or any previous editor you'd find they never really had enough material on hand so that they could choose the best possible mix of news, pictures and informative articles. In most cases each editor has had barely enough material for the issue at hand and hoped a few fairly regular contributors would come up with something before the next issue was due. That's no way to run a publication! So if we want an outstanding Newsletter we (every member) must deluge the editor with material, give him a wide variety to select from. and let him know there's more where that came from!

 

If editor Burgess doesn't bounce our bailout of the park I'II get back with my ideas on how to pay for such a publication and how to use it to get new and old members in a future article.