Unread post
by Peter Joffe » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:01 pm
It was part of my modes operandi to get advertising to cover all the costs of production and this is what I did for many years. The postages were the only cost that members had to bear and this was set at the maximum of R8.00 per member per issue in recent years. After all the interference and meddling in things that they knew nothing about, the Brink SMC decided to kick me out, trash the free newsletter and take the work in-house to 'save' costs. How you can save on something that is free is still to be explained but if 'tanglefoot' expects to get any answers from the SMC he will be disappointed. In 9 months I have not been successful in this endeavor and have watched as the newsletter dies.
As a printer and publisher I know what I am talking about and to keep it simple here is what has happened. The budget for expenses for the newsletter was set at R100,000 per annum so this equates to R16,666, per issue, postage's extra as explained above. The cost to print the newsletter as a 24 pager for 3,900 odd members is about R23,000 vat inclusive.
The present editor, who seems to be Bob Skinner, earns R250,000 per annum and from experience I can tell you that it takes about 2 to 3 weeks to produce the artwork and sell the adverts. If this is the case then the newsletter costs R35,000 but as you well know, the budget that is cast in stone, and got me fired is R16,666 so guess who has to pay the additional costs? YES you are right - the members will have to carry the can and a huge dent is being made in SAMAA cash resources. I always sold more than enough advertising to cover all the costs but got fired anyway. The budget was ridiculous so I simply ignored as it was not possible to produce a good newsletter under those constraints. I sold the adverts so that I had an amount to spend and then cut the cloth to suit the outcome and all that was left to pay was the postages and mailing as explained above.
Is it not of great interest that the present SMC are happy to overspend the budget by over 200% and not even blush?
Advertising sales now are almost non existent but that too is overlooked.
I warned and warned and warned that what was happening would result in the end of the newsletter but was accused of 'ranting' and was thrown out without so much as a letter of being fired. So far SAMAA is down at least R70,000 for their ill informed decisions. The previous 'free' newsletter has now cost SAMAA about R70,000 for 2 issues. Peter Joffe