Hi Chas I trust you are well. You do predate me by several years as I joined in 1968 and have enjoyed all my years with a great bunch of folk! Like Chas I also edited Miscellany around 99,2000 when Cliff Baker retired and just before Charles Neal. I do have every copy since it became a regular monthly magazine in 1976. It has changed considerably over the years, firstly the small A5 magazines although convenient in size were getting to fat! You try keeping them open at a page and copying in a challenge. The change to a new format came about under the last year of Chris Rowe and Cliff Baker's take over and the idea of moving to colour would need a change of printer. The then printers were primarily a business card type of outfit. We first moved to part colour which made layout extremely difficult and frustrating as we wanted to maximise the use of colour with photos. With modern technology full colour printing became affordable and we now produce a magazine I am proud to be a part of. I will not deal with the editorial side as this is mainly Charles Neal's province. The common complaint is too much advertising. We it is around a third (20 pages) of commercial advertising. All "Club" adverts for events, badges etc are not included in this figure and I see as an important part of the magazine, it is a "Club" information tool. The commercial advertising pays a good percentage of the cost of production. The main headache is the ever increasing postage costs! As to the content of advertising this is of course up to the advertisers some use professional designers some do it themselves sending in pdf files of the finished copy and some send an email with text and photos and let me sort out. I quite enjoy that part. The change in "type" of member has changed considerably and we often comment in HopMog that we are becoming a dining club. But I am afraid that is the way life is, although having worked on my Morgans in the past it is not something I enjoyed and in later years more than happy to leave to professionals and a total lack of either garage or off road areas made this essential. I know by reading these emails that a lot of you still do enjoy working on your Morgans but becoming fewer in number and with all the new electronics on the engines it is becoming impossible to work on without a great deal of up to date equipment and knowledge. And of course Miscellany reflects these changes so more emphasis on trips abroad and dinners and less on the mechanics. C'est La Vie I am afraid.
Must get on with the June magazine now. Brian Pixham Moderator and Deputy Miscellany editor -----Original Message----- From: Chas. [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 10 May 2012 10:34 To: mogtalk2 Subject: Re: [mogtalk2] Miscellany Miscellany started off as a duplicated A4 sheet sent out every month, progressing to a quarterly duplicated magazine, which went to all members, home members receiving the monthly duplicated newsletter as well. Just been going through some I edited in the 60s, much more competition then. When I took over as secretary we had just over 220 members of which some 95% used their cars on a daily basis and some 75% used them for some form of competition. In those days the Morgan was a cheap sports car not as it is today, in 1965 the basic Morgan 4/4 cost more than the basic Mini but cheaper than the top of the range Mini. The Club introduced the monthly Miscellany in April 1976, as I had edited the newsletter I took over this publication, hard at times to get enough articles but it all came together. Remember a bit of flack when I introduced the pin up photos on the rear cover, most members appreciated John's (John H Sheally11) photots, indeed many members and centres submitted similar. As time went on, the membership increased, when I retired as secretary in 1984, becoming the Clubs first Vice President,it stood at over 1700 members. In recent times the profile of the Morgan Owner has changed, no longer just the enthusiast but because of the cost of the cars, a far more wealthy person,a lot of which understand nothing about cars. To illustrate this one Sunday a few years ago a member rang me up to identify a pool of liquid under his Morgan, its usual weekend usage to go and get the papers, didn't know if it was oil or water based. As the owners profile changes the magazine must also change to reflect the interests of the majority of owners. Of course on the technical front there is much less you can do at home with modern electronics than you could with points and tappets. I can still "play" with my classic,a Mk.IV Spitfire, sadly cannot afford a Morgan these days. Chas. Smith. ------------------------------------------- View posts on The Mail Archive http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ [http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/] Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- View posts on The Mail Archive http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ [http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/] Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=22459785&id_secret=22459785-4a39ddf8 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
