The Last Word

In lieu of an editorial

A Warm Welcome to our Readers

After an hiatus of six years, Nurturing Potential (NP) is once more online, in much the same format as previously, but with several new features.

We have lost some of our regular contributors.  In one case, alas, by death.  Others have moved home, either within the United Kingdom or abroad.  Some of these continue to support us with articles and book reviews.  Others have found that their new activities do not leave them time to renew their previous contributions, but have promised to help if and when they can in the future.

To all of these we wish good luck and much success in their present and future endeavours.

The death of Mike Baynes, was advised with an obituary notice in a special addition to the last issue of the previous version of NP.  He was a good friend and sturdy support and has been much missed.  His contributions are still available online via our archives,

The "slack" has been partially taken up by the presence of some new contributors and we look forward to further material from them in coming issues.   We can never get too much support and anyone wishing to provide assistance will be keenly welcomed.  We are open to any help that can be given.  Articles, book reviews, and graphical material are, of course, in the front line.  But we also welcome constructive criticism, positive ideas for future issues, and any other suggestions you may care to make. 

If you do not have the time, ability, or inclination to produce original material, please realise that there is an abundance of material available on the internet and the authors and publishers (in whom copyright resides) are usually only too keen to have their material reproduced in NP, providing due copyright accreditation is given.  So if you spot anything on another website or in someone's blog, and you think it could be of interest to the readers of NP, please either mention us to the author, or direct us to the source and we will make the approach on your behalf.

This applies to illustrations as well as written material and actually in many way they are preferable, because all our articles benefit from refreshment by way of graphics.  No matter how interesting an article is, the eye-catching merits of a picture will improve its viewer-appeal.

Incidentally, our "Contributors" section, featuring biographical data of the people who have written for this issue, is noticeably lacking in some photographs.  This is because we have only published photographs that have been provided or authorised.  If your own photograph is missing - and you would like it to appear - please send us a thumbnail jpeg and we will insert it, even before the next issue!

POTENTIAL UNLEASHED

By now I would hope that all our readers are aware of the new companion site to Nurturing Potential that is produced monthly  - with the exception of the four months in the year when NP itself appears.

There have so far been three issues of Potential Unleashed.   This issue of NP has come out in June 2013 and the next issue of Potential Unleashed will therefore be at the end of July 2013.

Potential Unleashed does not follow the format of NP, being more akin to a weblog, but it is a useful vehicle for material that is either unsuitable for NP, has failed to make the deadline for inclusion in NP, or is being previewed (usually in abbreviated form) prior to its inclusion in the next issue of NP.  This is particularly true of book reviews, where review copies may have been received considerably in advance of NP and it helps our relationship with the publishers to have a "taster" included in anticipation of the full review in the next NP.

The last issue of Potential Unleashed may be seen HERE

The other possibility offered by Potential Unleashed, that is not available in Nurturing Potential, is that its columns are offered freely to all our subscribers and contributors to use for non-commercial advertisements of activities they consider will be of interest to readers.   Friends of NP are already using the left-hand Blog column for their own blog announcements, and the bottom of the right-hand column is available for news of activities and forthcoming events.  We hope this will prove a very useful feature to all of  you.

BOOK REVIEW SECTION

We knew that our book reviews had always been highly regarded by both the publishers who provided the books and the readers who enjoyed them.  But we have been slightly overwhelmed by the response of our book-publisher friends to the reappearance of Nurturing Potential.  There is a "bumper crop" of reviews in this issue.  Some of them, admittedly, are rather short, but they are more than counter-balanced by the length of others.  Not that we judge the merits of a review by the number of words it contains!  Any more than we judge the worth of the OUP's Very Short Introduction series by the fact that its volumes habitually contain not much more than 100 pages.  We have several of this series reviewed in this issue and they continue to impress us.

Any books received for review that have not made it into this issue will be offered for review in abbreviated form in the July issue of Potential Unleashed and/or will be held over for the September issue of Nurturing Potential.

Any reviews that have been submitted too late for this issue will be published in the July issue of Potential Unleashed.

FOR THE FUTURE

Nurturing Potential 03 will appear in September 2013.  It will feature the continuation of the main theme of Teamwork.

In this connection we would like to refer to the Teamwork graphic that appears at the head of the Main Theme section of the current issue.  This was produced by our good friend Stephen Bray who has simultaneously and sadly advised us that work and  family commitments have made it necessary for him to resign as our Consultant Editor.  We shall miss him and his valuable input, but hope he may still occasionally contribute to our pages.

We welcome offers of help and support.  If you would like to provide articles on any subject, or offer proof-reading or  graphical content support, or if the quality of the books that have been reviewed encourages you to offer your own book reviewing services, please don't be shy about stepping forward.

Warm regards to all of you,

Joe Sinclair

Managing Editor