Editorial
This Issue of Nurturing Potential (Number 6 on line) marks our first anniversary.
We have achieved our goal of six online issues and three paper issues; we have made some mistakes - and learned some lessons; we have enjoyed some successes, for which we received welcome and fulsome praise (Mark Edwards, in particular, take a bow!); and we have in very large measure nurtured our own potential as a team.
It has not been my practice to produce an editorial for each issue. I regard these as being too often hobby-horsical, and prefer to save any comments for The Last Word section, but I didn't want to let this "anniversary" go unmarked and am taking the opportunity to mention our plans for future issues.
The decision to produce an online issue every two months, and a paper issue three times a year, has been a bit of a curate's egg. Having been associated with many periodicals appearing quarterly, I was aware of the difficulty of getting enough material to fill each issue. The interspersing of online and paper editions, however, has produced a somewhat different scenario, whereby the material appearing on line is outrunning the space available for the paper editions, and the backlog is inevitably increasing.
We are therefore exploring various options, including an increase in the size of the paper issue (from 32 to 36 or 40 pages) or an increase in the frequency of the paper edition to four times a year.
Either of these changes would inevitably increase production costs and, in order to maintain our existing policy of no commercial advertising, we would have to increase the cover and/or annual subscription prices. We would probably have to raise the cover price to £3.50 per issue, or to increase the annual subscription to £15.00 for four issues inclusive of postal delivery.
An additional consideration is to make the full online issue available to all subscribers; in other words, to make no additional charge for the password key to the online issue, but provide this to all subscribers. Visitors to the online edition would still be able to access all but the original material, i.e. that material which eventually appears in the paper issue.
Our final decision will be advised after the next online edition is published and immediately prior to publication of the next paper edition. Existing subscriptions will, of course, continue to be honoured, and subscribers will be offered a "loyalty" reduction for renewals.
We would be happy to receive comments on these proposals from readers and would be grateful for any suggestions for production, layout or material content for future issue.
My thanks to the Editorial Team for the support they have given me in this inaugural year, and to all contributors and subscribers without whom (as the cliché has it) this achievement would not have been possible.
Joe Sinclair