On 17 October 2007, Darren (Centauri) made a derogatory post concerning ‘Sky and Space’. This was followed on 18 Oct 2007 by a misleading post. On 28 Oct 2007, Darren made a third post that was also very misleading in that it did not contain all the relevant details but did feature selected editorialising by Darren.
Visit:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=24958
The aim of my post here now is to clarify for the benefit of forum members the true sequence of events concerning Darren’s complaints.
Rather than engage in a pubic slanging match it has been my practice, up until now, to either ignore such posts or to correspond separately with the person concerned. In this case, I did choose to correspond separately with Darren but found, in the end, that these discussions were not fruitful.
The situation has now reached a point where I refuse to stand by and allow people to continually take pot shots at ‘Sky and Space’ together with our many supporters and advertisers.
Hence, this is my first post on this forum despite having been a member since the time the forum was first started.
As Darren has indicated in his last post, he still prefers the comfort of anonymity on the forum. However, this is despite the fact he was quite prepared not to extend that same courtesy to us when he decided to slag off at ‘Sky and Space’. However, in respecting that stance for Darren and his partner Lee, I have deleted their personal contact details where appropriate.
I readily acknowledge that for very valid reasons ‘Sky and Space’ has experienced a number of problems that we have been working hard to solve. We accept these problems are very frustrating for all concerned.
The root of the problem is the very small size of the Australian/NZ market (population of 25 million for Australia/NZ vs 303 million in the USA). For a specialist market such as astronomy, within such a small population, there is a very low revenue base whereas there are huge costs required to produce a magazine such as ‘Sky and Space’. For these reasons, the publication is produced largely by volunteers and my thanks go to this great team of dedicated people.
This mode of operation does have its downside in that people can only provide their material when they are able to and most have full time work commitments and family responsibilities. This means that sometimes I have to wait for the material to be provided and this has a knock-on effect for frequency and/or the material all comes in together and I physically cannot process all the material in time. A lot of work is required to get all the material prepared for pre-press production. Also, over recent times, we have undertaken a complete redesign to give the magazine a totally 'new look'. This all takes time.
However, with volunteers, there is also an upside in that the great enthusiasm and dedication achieves excellent quality but, importantly, at an affordable overall cost – this strategy has resulted in our long-term sustainability.
The publication of ‘Sky and Space’ is truly ‘amateur astronomy’ (for the love of it) at its best.
Furthermore, with our new look, our new editorial team and our radio exposure (we appear weekly on about 60 networked radio stations all around Australia) our revenue base is expanding considerably with a great number of many new advertisers and readers. The added benefit is that in 2008 we will be expanding our sales and distribution channels into a number of overseas countries. This initiative, in partnership with others, will help to continue to take Australian amateur astronomy to the world.
Plus, we have a number of other projects in hand for development. All this will result in ‘Sky and Space’ being able to employ staff in 2008 to work directly with me in the Bondi Junction office on the magazine production. This will help share the considerable workload (although we will still continue to rely heavily on volunteers due to the small size of the overall market).
It would be irresponsible to create an organisational structure that is far beyond the capabilities of the local market. It is imperative we continue to operate on a long-term sustainable basis. The publishing industry is littered with failed magazine titles that come and go after a few years.
The fact ‘Sky and Space’ is about to enter our 20th year of publishing is a testament to the perseverance of our team of volunteers and their devotion to the local astronomical community.
I founded the magazine some 19 years ago in conjunction with my daughter and we invited another person, Jonathan Nally, to join with us to be the editor. This person acted in that role right up until a few years ago before leaving without notice. We then had two editors in quick succession.
The first of these successive editors was Les Dalrymple who acted in a paid capacity. Les worked with us on two issues only. The second successive editor fulfilled the editorial role for the subsequent three issues of the magazine.
Finally, out of sheer frustration, I took over the total editorial responsibility and continued the re-launch of the magazine as the New ‘Sky and Space’ with the completely new editorial team. Prior to this time, the long-standing, original editor’s prime responsibility was for all editorial and production of the magazine plus all reader and subscription correspondence, enquiries, queries etc.
Since taking over, I have instituted a series of changes including an increase in pages by 47% (up from 68 to 100 pages) and a new fresh approach. More recently, I have completely re-designed the magazine with a vibrant new look.
I’m in the midst of completely finalising new editorial and production systems and procedures. Unfortunately, these were never previously instituted under the three previous editors. The continuing implementation of these new systems and procedures will greatly improve productivity and assist previous frequency problems.
To our many, many supporters – I thank you. To those few detractors who seem intent to continue to just carp and take pot shots from the sidelines – your negative actions will not dissuade us from ensuring ‘Sky and Space’ grows to reach its full potential. In fact, your actions only serve to steel our resolve to continue to publish the best possible 100% locally-owned and 100% locally-produced magazine.
If anyone wishes to be part of the solution (rather than the problem) so we can expedite our many future projects even faster – then please email me separately and I will share with you some of our many other exciting plans.
If you have become caught up in any problems whatsoever in dealing with ‘Sky and Space’ throughout these implementation stages then I do apologise. If any problems are still outstanding then drop me an email and I'll certainly do my best to fix asap.
In the meanwhile, I gave Darren seven days ie until Wednesday 31 October 2007 to post the full exchange of emails so that forum members were fully aware of the sequence of events.
Darren has chosen not to action this matter in the proper manner.
Therefore, in the interest of full transparency and for the benefit of forum members, I have summarised the complete sequence of events and given the total exchange of emails with Darren and Lee.
All this information is contained in this post (‘Part A’) plus the two following posts (‘Part B’ and ‘Part C’)
From this email exchange you will clearly see that the two posts as made by Darren have totally misrepresented the facts and the sequence of events as they actually happened.
I would like to think that the complete summary and email exchange as contained in these three posts will now end this particular matter.
Lyle Rumble
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EMAIL No. 1 – RECEIVED FROM LEE BY ‘SKY and SPACE’
From: Lee x
To: mario.nucifora@SkyandSpace.com.au
Sent: Tuesday, August 2007
Subject: oops
Hi Mario.
I have stuffed up with my order . Order number 61263. I would like to change the subsription so that it starts with the July/August edition. Let me know if this will be a problem as it is a birthday present for my husband and I did not realise when I ordered that I was ordering for the next edition
Regards
Lee
Lee x
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EMAIL No. 2 – REPLY SENT BY ‘SKY and SPACE’ TO LEE
Orig Message
Subject: Re: oops
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007
From:
Mario.Nucifora@SkyandSpace.com.au
To: Lee x
Hello Lee
I will send a copy of the Jul/Aug 07 issue together with the DVDs ordered.
The full order will be despatched this week.
Regards
Mario Nucifora
Operations Manager
Sky and Space Magazine
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[ END OF ‘PART A’ – PLEASE SEE ‘PARTS B & C’ FOR THE BALANCE OF EMAILS]
[ This info was needed to be split into three separate posts due to the set limit of space that each post must understandably fit within ]