Thanks for the comments guys, it's nice to know that people appreciate the efforts of all the contributors.
My aim is to build Pronto to a level of quality that rivals professional publications. I know the odd photo that is slightly lower quality may creep in, but please remember that this is a magazine that is still put together by amateur contributors; so if somebody submits a good photo of an event that captures the spirit of the moment, but, in order to do that, they just had to snatch a shot on their phone or without checking that their camera was set on hi-res mode, I will still use that shot rather than use a higher quality photo that says nothing.
While we're on the question of contributors, I do persuade and cajole people to submit articles and pictures, and then they find that their contribution doesn't appear in the mag. This doesn't mean to say that I have turned my nose up at all your hard work and am simply giving you the brush off, it's just that I've got a vague plan for each issue. This issue, for example, was largely focused north of the Watford Gap - and if I could have persuaded everyone I asked in the north to contribute I could have filled two issues - but inevitably not everyone can contribute, or wanted to contribute.
What this means is that your contribution will be going into the pool of articles that I'm trying to build up (at the moment it's still a bit hand to mouth) and I can guarantee that your article will be pencilled in to be used at some point. I also realise that not every contributor can write a full article, so if you've contributed bullet points, or a summary, I will phone you so that we can flesh the article out. If your article really is unusable for any reason I won't simply chuck it in the bin, you have my personal guarantee that I will contact you to tell you why, or to work with you to bring it up to the amount of copy we need.
I would like to build Pronto to a level where it, alone, is well worth the membership fee; let alone the other club benefits and events. We are currently restricted to 28 pages purely because of cost (both production costs and postage costs) so if we want it to be bigger any extra pages will have to fund themselves through further advertising since Pronto is already the biggest outlay for the club. However, I think that, page for page, we're close to being comparable with professional publications right now; though I would say that wouldn't I
As far as delivery is concerned. Firstly, we're not handing out Pronto at random to members and non-members alike; Pronto is one of the benefits that members get for their money (and as I've said my aim is to make sure it really is a benefit for members and not something that hits the bottom of the bin faster than junk mail). However, the policy is that if your membership elapsed at some time since the previous Pronto was published, you will still receive the current one as a final send off, to say so long, thanks for your support and to remind you of what you're missing
You will not receive any further Prontos after that (unless, that is, our efforts inspire you to renew your membership). There are a few, very few, copies that are sent to non-members as a courtesy, but I'm sure you won't begrudge a copy being sent to Ducati in Bologna.
For all full members, your Pronto is mailed out from the current address we hold in the mebership database. You should receive your copy shortly after we get delivery from the printers, however, remember once again that
some poor sod (not me thankfully) has to bag up hundreds and hundreds of copies and take them down the post office in their spare time. Not unreasonably they may do this over a couple of evenings, so if your copy goes in the post on the second bite it may come in a day or so later than the first post saying "got my Pronto" hits the forum. Once the mags are with the post office, we are entirely in their hands as to whether it reaches you in a reasonable time. Typically, the number of 'no shows' is consistent with the percentage of mail that gets lost in the post (about 1-2%), so if this happens, please PM me and I will send you another. If your copy still doesn't arrive, please check to see that you haven't changed address without telling us.
Glad you like it anyway