Ambassador's Dispatch

August 6, 2001 vol.1 no.9

Still more time between dispatches than I prefer, but a marked improvement over the last gap.

Saturday, August 4th saw several things happen before noon.

* Trying to save a little cash while still helping one of the Legends members out, I ran around to get his zine copied and placed with mine and the President�s Message for issue #89 in a box headed for Central Mailer Mike L. (You either already know his name or don't need to.)

* When I finally made it home after having stood nearly an hour in a post office line I found my latest Westfield box of comics on my doorstep. New comics! Woo-hoo! But they had to wait a few minutes...

* Jumping online to send the specifics to the CM (to let Mike L. know what I�d sent out via Priority Mail, including number of pages so that he could add them into the Table of Contents ahead of time) I found a couple brief notes from Mike, including one to the entire Legends membership announcing that following the completion of this issue he was resigning both as CM and as a member, and that his reasons would be in this issue�s zine. (As of this writing I can still only guess at his reasons.)

Hmph.

As president of Legends being the fall-back or emergency CM is one of the duties, and since in the August issue�s President�s Message (in that box headed for Mike L.) I announce that I�ll be running for both offices in 2002, that part didn�t bother me. I see this as a good running start. Somewhere in the past year I�d picked up what I thought was a fairly clear message from Mike that he was only planning on being CM for 2001, and had no interest in continuing in that role for 2002.

No, it was that we were losing Mike as a member that bothered me. Even though for a stretch Mike posted the terrible parade of problems that had come his way in the past year, it�s not my place to rehash any of that here. Suffice to say that the poor guy has been dealing with a great deal. Still, he continued as CM while also continuing to work and be active in local theatre alternately as actor and director depending on the project. He�d been keeping very busy. When issues ran late he even paid for mailing costs.

When I responded to his announcement I wanted to express my deep regret that we were losing his participation as a member, and at the same time underscore that taking on the CM duties wouldn�t present an unwanted burden for me. I wanted him to know that the CM workload part was completely cool with me and hadn�t wrecked my weekend. Still fresh in my mind was my Prez Message announcement of running for both offices, too, as was my above belief that he�d never intended to stay as CM for another year.

Unfortunately, those last bits led me to phrase it that I was expecting to take on the CM duties in 2002 anyway, and Mike took that as a shot at his performance as CM. Completely and utterly unintended on my part, but I�m not sure it�s being accepted that way despite my explanations. I should have been more careful in how I phrased myself, I suppose. Email is wonderful in so many ways, but its ease and speed makes it, pardon the cliche, a double-edged sword.

And... that�s as much as I have to say on that for now. It�s been on my mind, so it spilled out here.

So, as of the October issue - which happens to be our 90th and also our 15th anniversary - I�ll be both CM and Prez of Legends for the first time since 1997, I believe. How I got here early doesn�t sit well with me, but that�s where I am and I�m happy to be in this double-wide seat again. Being able to deal from both offices at once, I believe, will be a great aid to me in recruiting members. In this respect (reinforced by promising developments later this past weekend) I�m encouraged.

Now that I�m in that space between issues, and I�m starting to work with this site again, I expect to be getting some updates done on other portions of the site. So far I�ve done a minor update on the Comic Book Crossroads section following hearing from Robert J. Sodaro. Next should be some comics reviews. Best to wait and see what I do, though, before saying much about it.

As ever: Enjoy the site, and bug me about updates if you fail to see any. Check the Embassy Messageboards for any updates or to leave any open-for-all feedback.

Drop me a line about the site or maybe even to inquire about Legends APA

...or take a look at previous Dispatches

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