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MESSAGE FROM
THE PRESIDENT
Dear Members,
I wanted to take this opportunity to catch you up on some HSA news and pass along some reminders.
Mentoring
My most recent announcement about the mentoring program led to several new requests from members who would like to have private instruction from a more experienced poet. I'm happy to announce that so far we have established mentoring relationships for 14 members who made such requests. Now I've exhausted my list of volunteers, so I'd like to invite more of you to serve. If you are an experienced, published HSA member who would like to lend guidance to a fellow poet, please contact me. Thanks!
Logo
We have decided to pay a graphic artist to design an HSA logo. A subcommittee led by Randy Brooks is now developing the specifications. If you are an artist, or if you know of one, let me know, and I'll put you in touch with Randy and his committee. Our goal is to have the logo on HSA handouts, merchandize and swag by the time of the Dodge Poetry Festival, Oct. 23-26.
Postrunner
The job of HSA secretary, as you can imagine, is quite demanding. The Executive Committee (EC) has been considering ways to lighten the load. One such proposal is to request a volunteer "postrunner" who can assist the secretary by mailing issues of Frogpond to late-renewing members. Here's how it would work. The postrunner would have a supply of Frogpond copies on hand. Every few weeks, the secretary would send a file listing the names and addresses of members who rejoined but missed one or two issues. The postrunner's job would be to mail copies of the journal to these members. HSA, of course, covers all expenses. We believe that a postrunner would help out enormously. Are you interested? If so, contact me.
Budget decision
Every month the EC meets by conference call. Last month, we met in this way and, upon the advice of our treasurer, decided that we can no longer provide hard copies of Ripples to members at no extra cost. As you may know, a few years ago we moved to an electronic format for our newsletter, using the money saved to allow us to send copies of the members' anthologies to all members without charging extra. This has worked well, but around 90 members have requested to receive hard copies, which have been expensive to produce. As of 2015, members who continue to request hard copies of Ripples will need to pay more for their membership renewals. We haven't set the exact amounts, but they would be along the lines of $35 for basic renewal and $59 for members who wish to receive printed copies of the newsletter. Note: we will "grandfather in" existing members who have no access to the Internet and no email address, allowing them to pay the basic renewal rate and yet still receive the paper copies of
Ripples. We believe that this change is fair and will save us a good sum of money in the long run.
HSA Atlanta
I'm happy to report that our quarterly meeting last month in Atlanta was a great success. I'd like to thank all the presenters and performers: Jim Kacian, Lee Gurga, Stanford M. Forrester, Ben Moeller-Gaa, Teresa Church, Laurence Stacy, Terri French, Lenard Moore, Vic Fleming, and Tom Painting's wonderful students at Paideia School. At the business meeting, members offered many great suggestions on ways to improve our educational outreach; expect to hear more about this in the coming months.
Members' anthology
Have you submitted your haiku to the anthology yet? I did so last week, thanks to a reminder from my friend and cofounder of the New Orleans Haiku Society, Johnette Downing. It was easy peasy, doing it all online, via email. The May 31st deadline will be here sooner than you may think, so why not send your poems today, if you haven't already done so?
And, please remember: to have your haiku appear in the anthology, you need to be a member in 2014. So, if you've been procrastinating, here's where you can take care of that business:
Next quarterly meeting. The summer meeting will be a joint production with the Cradle of American Haiku Festival, July 25-27, at Mineral Point, Wisconsin. For more information or to have your name added to the mailing list, please contact Gayle Bull at 608-987-4363 or info@foundrybooks.com. Hope to see you there!
David G. Lanoue
HSA President
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Ignatius Fay
HSA Bulletin Editor
Haiku Society of America Comments or concerns about your membership? Please contact the HSA officers - click here | |
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If you have not had a chance to check out the ".haiku" column at the HSA webpage, please do so! Gene Myers shares tools and tips available to haiku poets. Click here for the archives. | |
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Membership in the Haiku Society of America includes a year's subscription to the society's journal, Frogpond (three issues yearly). In addition, members receive the newsletter, Ripples (three issues yearly), the annual information sheet, and an annual address/email list of HSA members.
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