The Enid Blyton Society

It would seem that hard economic times are hitting the Society. In the first quarter of this year we have had 22 new members, our worst first quarter since the website opened. This compares with 47 in 2010 and 48 in 2009. The full year for 2010 was already our worst year on record and this year is looking like dipping even further.

The forums are going in the other direction as 153 people signed on in the last three months, which is also a record.

These are not good figures when the postage for overseas Journals has just gone up by 22p (11p for UK Journals a 13.6% increase!).

What about the option of a downloadable pdf version of the journal at the same price as the booklet (or whatever would be reasonable.)....great for overseas members possibly?......

Thus saving postage,paper and printing costs?
It could run in tandem with the booklet version of the journal and maybe allow savings to made as everthing else has increased in price.

If it was a choice of no journal or a downloadable version,that would be ok by me.
Also if the journal needed to be increased in price to cover all the extra costs,that too is reasonable,given that just about everything is going up all the time....even petrol!

I have had three haircuts in the last year,and everytime I go the barber puts the price up by £1.....Its now up to £7 for a haircut,but I am happy to pay up to £10 for a proper cut so dont mind.

I pay £2 every week for the Saturday Telegraph,whilst my wife pays about 40p for the Express Mon-Frid..£2 per week.
That means we pay £16 per month just for those papers......I would be happy to pay more for the journal if it meant we could keep it to its usual standards....I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way??

regards

Pete

pete9012S wrote:What about the option of a downloadable pdf version of the journal at the same price as the booklet (or whatever would be reasonable.)....great for overseas members possibly?......

As long as it was optional, that doesn't sound a bad idea at all. Some members don't have computers of course, and others (myself included) prefer a printed booklet to take out and about, and keep on the bookshelf.

Let's hope current members keep resubscribing. To sit down with the Journal is a real tonic. You get three bumper issues for only a couple of pounds more than a single prescription for medicine from the doctor (in England, at least) - and I for one feel that reading the Journal does me much more good! Like Pete, I'd certainly be prepared to pay more as it's a high-quality publication packed with varied, informative and entertaining articles.

I think the download option is a good one too, although personally I'd still get the printed booklet.

pete9012S wrote:I have had three haircuts in the last year,and everytime I go the barber puts the price up by £1.....Its now up to £7 for a haircut,but I am happy to pay up to £10 for a proper cut so dont mind.

£7 for a haircut!!! I've been paying £9 for my school age son for at least a couple of years now

Anita Bensoussane wrote:

pete9012S wrote:What about the option of a downloadable pdf version of the journal at the same price as the booklet (or whatever would be reasonable.)....great for overseas members possibly?......

As long as it was optional, that doesn't sound a bad idea at all. Some members don't have computers of course, and others (myself included) prefer a printed booklet to take out and about, and keep on the bookshelf.

Let's hope current members keep resubscribing. To sit down with the Journal is a real tonic. You get three bumper issues for only a couple of pounds more than a single prescription for medicine from the doctor (in England, at least) - and I for one feel that reading the Journal does me much more good! Like Pete, I'd certainly be prepared to pay more as it's a high-quality publication packed with varied, informative and entertaining articles.

I agree with Anita here on the whole. My only reservation would be that if the majority went for the downloadable version, it might effect the feesibilty of a printing run, so leave this unbelievably superb value for money publication, the way it is now.

My preference is always something I can keep and put on a shelf, so a printed Journal is what I would vote for. I would also vote for the price going up too. My husband's journal, from a society which he is in, is double the cost of the Society Journal and is much much thinner!!! Our Journal is worth an increase in cost, I think as it's well worth the read.

A price increase would be fine by me. The journal is unbelievable value for money and its definitely worth a bit more. The economic climate is a major factor I think, hopefully when things improve some people will return. I'm not sure at what point Tony, you know what the contents of the next journal will be but would it be an idea that, when you send your reminders to people you sort of whet their appetite by putting in a paragraph saying something like "In the next journal you can read all about ....... etc"?

Lucky Star wrote:A price increase would be fine by me. The journal is unbelievable value for money and its definitely worth a bit more.

I agree entirely with this, John.

By the way, my haircuts costs me £13 plus £1 tip, Pete and I have one roughly every five weeks. That's about ten haircuts per year, costing me £140! Wow, it's frightening to see the amount in black and white! Then there's the cost of Chick's hairdos...

Bearing in mind what I have said in the above paragraph, I would be more than happy to pay substantially more for my society subscriptions.

I am rather regretting my initial post here as I wasn't suggesting the imminent demise of the Journal at all, merely point out the facts as they currently stand. From a financial point of view the only important thing is that the Journal should break even and not make a loss. For this reason I will probably have to increase the Rest of World subscription to £14, but both the UK and Europe subscriptions are fine for the moment. Any price increase inevitably means a drop in membership, this was the case when I increased the UK sub from £8 to £10. To maintain the printed Journal in its current form (colour and page count) I need a minimum of 400 subscribers an online PDF version could seriously effect this.

For various reason a PDF version is not very practical, it would involve a great deal of work and not just by me. Michael Rouse tried this with Green Hedges Magazine and it was an abject failure. As a great many people expect things on the internet to be free, it did not increase his number of subscribers, but simply split them as fewer people wanted printed copies, this could prove fatal for the printed Journal. I have considered the possibility of putting some early Journals that have been out of print for many years onto the website as PDF files, but as yet I haven't gone into the practicalities of this.

As I pointed out in my initial post we are not picking up nearly as many new members as we used to, so the important thing now is that as many current subscribers as possible resubscribe. I sent out almost 250 resubscription forms with the current Journal and I will watch nervously over the coming months to see how many of these fall by the wayside.

On a brighter note, I have over the past week or two turned all eleven Birns Brothers facsimiles into PDF files and although I will not be putting these onto the website I hope to be able to keep all in print and available through the shop. This includes The Wonderful Adventure which will actually be making its debut as a proper booklet. It previously appeared as part of an EB Day programme, but it has been out of print for many years and the quality of this version will be vastly superior to the earlier photocopied version. It is a very rare book (I only know of two copies), but it will of course only be available to Society Members.

A subscription increase for the journal is fine by me as well. The EBS journal is quality. In my opinion, we pay very little for a superb, entertaining read. You would be hard pushed to find another society that can offer the same value for money, etc, especially in the present economic climate. Everything is costing more - paper, printing, etc,- so it is only a matter of time before Tony is forced to increase our subscription. Its just a sign of the times, I'm afraid. The journal will still be worth every penny. I, for one, won't be complaining.

Be Seeing you

No6

Just a thought.if out of print journals were made available online in pdf form to be bought via paypal,I for one would be very happy to 'treat ' myself to any back issues I wanted to read and thus swell the societys coffers at the same time.....

They could be made available worldwide,and maybe a buy two get one free offer would create even more turnover to help the society to keep 'breaking even'.....

Only a suggestion I know,but there are a wealth of back issues that surely many true Enid Blyton fans would otherewise never get to read???

Or,even a bumper Enid Blyton Society Special,with highlites from the journal over the years could be produced that would be attractive to all and thus bring in more money to keep the Society ticking over.....
(Im really just imagining the things I personally would love to see available and would be happy to pay for!! )

Regards

Pete

ps Eddie,I hope my barber doesnt read these forums-seems Im getting a bargain!-(I too go for a haircut every 6 or 7 weeks with my Dad who has more hair than me,and has hardly any grey at 67!)

pete9012S wrote:ps Eddie,I hope my barber doesnt read these forums-seems Im getting a bargain!-(I too go for a haircut every 6 or 7 weeks with my Dad who has more hair than me,and has hardly any grey at 67!)

Your Dad is the same age as me, Pete. He's lucky to have hardly any grey hair, as mine is totally grey, but I have not started losing any of it yet. However, my son, Neil who has just turned 41 is rapidly losing his hair much to his dismay.

The Rand/Pound exchange rate has gone in my favour and absorbed some of the last increase so I’m not paying much more really.

The price of a haircut went up the last time I had one, but I’m still getting a good deal.

A friend of my mum's comes to my house and cuts our hair....and my mum pays for it. I have no idea how much getting mine cut costs . I do know my other half goes to a trendy hair salon and pays about £17 for his hair to get cut (and usually just gives them a twenty). I've told him he could go elsewhere but he knows he will get his hair cut the way he likes it there so won't change!

Slightly more on topic , I'd also be happy to pay a small amount to download out of print journals. Either a set fee per journal or an additional online subscription to download as many as I like.

Eddie Muir wrote:

pete9012S wrote:ps Eddie,I hope my barber doesnt read these forums-seems Im getting a bargain!-(I too go for a haircut every 6 or 7 weeks with my Dad who has more hair than me,and has hardly any grey at 67!)

Your Dad is the same age as me, Pete. He's lucky to have hardly any grey hair, as mine is totally grey, but I have not started losing any of it yet. However, my son, Neil who has just turned 41 is rapidly losing his hair much to his dismay.

Somehow, whenever my husband gets his hair cut, he comes back with even more grey than he started with. As he's nearer the 41 mark, I'm assuming he'll be snowy white by the time he gets to 67

Fiona1986 wrote:A friend of my mum's comes to my house and cuts our hair....and my mum pays for it. I have no idea how much getting mine cut costs .

Sounds like you have a good deal going there Fiona, my cousin is a hairdresser, and we go to my mother's house and get it cut there, but pay for our own. Although it's Mum's electricity that's used, so I guess I'm not too hard done by

Sort of back on topic, I'd be very interested in any version of Green Hedges magazine. I've managed to purchase a few copies from E-Bay, but still need the majority of them, so then chance to view the missing ones would be great. (Just in case Tony ever runs out of things to do)