Post by Andy Pastuszak on Sept 12, 2022 18:54:06 GMT
Last weekend I attended the annual meeting of the Ukrainian Philatelic and Numismatic Society.
I had some frustration at this meeting, and I wanted to share my thoughts and ask for people's opinion.
The UPNS publishes a twice yearly journal and a bi-monthly newsletter. The newsletter has gone PDF only, and gets emailed to members. The journal is ONLY available as a print journal that's mailed to members. We charge members outside the US $20.00 more to cover postage on the journal.
So, at the meeting I suggested that we offer a $20.00 discount to international members if they agree to get the journal as a PDF instead of a print copy. This idea was immediately rejected. They said they would lose most of their international members, because one person would subscribe and share the journal with everyone else in that country.
Club members seem to think that the Journal is the #1 reason why anyone joins the UPNS.
I don't join stamp clubs just to get their publications. I join them to support them and for the companionship and being able to pick other people's brains.
The club finally agreed to make all the journals back to 1951 available as PDFs on the website for public access, EXCEPT FOR the most current 5 years. Despite my request that the most current 5 years be made available as PDFs for members behind a login page, there was zero interest in that, since I had the print copies mailed to me and could just read those.
So, I'm curious. If you belong to stamp club, how do they handle publications? Are PDFs available? Are you a member just for the publications?
