(erielack) Unansered Questions

[William Shultz <wshultz1_@_twcny.rr.com>]

Immediately after the mid September annual meeting, I asked an 
appropriately place Board member, since the "Open Discussion" didn't 
turn out quite as was planned, how could the questions that were sent to 
me by members get answered, that were not able to be asked at the meeting.

In a nutshell, the Open Discussion ended up with two Board members 
speaking and presenting their take on bringing democratic governance to 
the ELHS for 40 minutes and my diatribe an additional 10 minutes. As a 
result a grand total of three people other than the afore mentioned 
impromptu "speakers" added input. We never had the opportunity to get 
beyond peoples tendency to hold back until others start the discussion 
to where they might feel comfortable asking their questions. Again, I am 
not pointing fingers, it just turned out that way.

Anyway, after waiting for over two months for a reply about how the 
unanswered questions would be asked in a public (to ELHS members) forum, 
I will out of respect for those that submitted questions, present them 
now. By the way, part of this same discussion with the unnamed Board 
member, was setting up a forum were members, Board, and otherwise, could 
interact without people having to resort to the EL mailing list to get a 
public answer. I'm sure the whole discussion was invariably forgotten 
about as has happened several times in the past.

The questions:

1A.  Average composition, layout etc., cost of the work performed by Andover Jct per issue of the Diamond?

1B. Average cost of printing an issue of the Diamond?

1C. Quantity printed per issue?


2A. Was the contract awarded to Andover Jct put out to competitive bid?

2B. Was the contract awarded to the printer of the Diamond put out to competitive bid? Printers for other publications?

2C. Is there a formal, written contract with Andover Jct that clearly spells out the business relationship and costs for publishing the Diamond? What is the contract length.


3A. Is a financial statement with income and disbursements available?

3B. The by-laws say a financial report must be produced annually. If it is, why isn't it published in the Extra Board or on the members section of the web site?


4. Why doesn't the ELHS produce models in N scale?

5. In other societies it seems that Board members also seem to be regular contributers to the society publication, yet if you look at how often ELHS Board members contribute, it seems to be rare. Yet some produce articles for other publications for which they are paid.

6. Are the dues going to be raised next year?

Again, these were all questions I received from others and I feel an obligation to have them presented. Several submitted similar questions and they have been distilled where appropriate. My biggest regret is that they had to be asked here.

Will Shultz

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