EB Day 2008

[Moonraker]

Next time that February 29th rolls round will be just before the London Olympics and hopefully by then I will just be able to post as an ordinary member - assuming that the EB Society is still up and running. I look forward to reading a post about Journal 47!

Heck. Who will be running the ship

[Anita Bensoussane]

[Tony:] Next time that February 29th rolls round will be just before the London Olympics and hopefully by then I will just be able to post as an ordinary member - assuming that the EB Society is still up and running. I look forward to reading a post about Journal 47!

The EB Society won't seem quite the same without you at the helm, Tony! We're aware that you devote an incredible amount of time to running the Society and producing the Journal and other Blyton-related publications though, and have done for many years, so we appreciate that you can't do that indefinitely! One thing's for sure - you'll never be just "ordinary."

Anita

[Lucky Star]

Next time that February 29th rolls round will be just before the London Olympics and hopefully by then I will just be able to post as an ordinary member

No way Tony, we have elected you President For Life.

Good to see so many forumites attending, those who have not yet bought tickets come on and do so. I am looking forward to seeing everyone, both those I met last year and those I will meet this year.

[Julie2owlsdene]

Next time that February 29th rolls round will be just before the London Olympics and hopefully by then I will just be able to post as an ordinary member

No way Tony, we have elected you President For Life.

I joined the Society last May and the forums July, and to me Tony is the Society, and Anita is his second in command. As long as there is a society, there has to be Tony at the helm!! (I know there must be others helping along the way too )

[Tony Summerfield]

I joined the Society last May and the forums July, and to me Tony is the Society, and Anita is his second in command. As long as there is a society, there has to be Tony at the helm!! (I know there must be others helping along the way too )

My off the cuff remark, made partly in jest has produced some kind responses, but there was also a more serious side to it, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to put some meat on the bones.

Dealing with your final remark first, Julie, I do get help on the EB Day (some of it paid), but for the other 364 days (365 this year!) I am entirely on my own with day to day running of the Society. Obviously this does put the future in a slightly precarious position, every time I cross the road the Society might come to an abrupt end! I have no doubt though, that another Society would quickly spring up in its place.

I belong to the Malcolm Saville Society, and I have joked in the past that they have eight people doing the varios jobs that I do - they even have a resubscrition secretary, and furthermore they only do two year stints, whilst I have been doing this for more than ten years.

We don't publish annual accounts as they do, as this would only provide me with more work I have never thought it necessary, though I know there are some who think that we should. We do not charge a membership fee, just a Journal subscription. As things stand, the past two Journals and the one that is currently at the printers, have all made a slight loss. Eventually I hope to sell every printed copy and there should then be a slight profit, but it may take a year or two. The same goes for booklets (I have a new one at the printers for the EB Day in May), with any luck they just about break even.

As has already been mentioned, Anita is a 'brick'! On paper the Forums have four administrators, but for various reasons three have gone AWOL for several months. In desperation I plucked up my courage and went into admin and attempted to give Anita administration status. I partially succeeded, but she still appears in purple as I was unable to turn her red!

Keith has made this website very user friendly for me (a technical idiot!) and I am now able to add things to all existing sections of it. If we want anything new however, we rely completely on Keith, who is a very busy person and anyway has his own website to manage. He started to give us a makeover for the Home Page two months ago, but he has been unable to find the time to do anything more, so for the moment that just remains a pipe dream.

Finally referring to Luck Star's post - I have never thought of myself as 'President', I am very much a backroom boy and have no wish to hog the limelight. When asked for my title by the press, I simply say 'organiser'.

[Bannerman65]

You still do an excellent job though, Tony.

*Hands Tony a Gold Star*

I have heard a rumor, about a new Famous Five series, that has the other members of the cast in it. I presume that my info is referring to Marcus, Gary, and Jennifer. Does anyone here know anything about it?

[Moonraker]

Don't let any of us be under any illusions - if Tony were to get run over by the proverbial bus, or decide, "Enough is enough", the Society as we know it would crumble. I can think of no other person who would or could devote practically his whole time to this wonderful society. I have known many organisations who have a team of active administrators and workers, but this is the first one that I have known where in the main, one person is responsible for its lifeblood. The amount of work that Tony puts into the Society is phenomenal. I know we all know this, but don't ever let us take him for granted.

Tony - we need you. Take very special care when crossing the road....

[Anita Bensoussane]

Well, I may not appear red on the board but I'm turning red in real life after reading the comments from Julie and Tony. Brick-red, in fact!

You'll have to shout out when you need help, Tony, if there's anything any of us can do. The trouble is that members are scattered not only throughout Britain but all over the globe, making it difficult to work on things as a team.

Anita

[Pippa-Stef]

I know I'm the n "New Girl" but I just want to say;

You've done a smashing Job on these boards and the forums. I take my hat off to you! And Everyone who makes this site work beautifully!

[Keith Robinson]

I've been meaning to log in for a while, and today Nigel gave me a pang of guilt by emailing me and wondering where the heck I'd been lately. So I logged in and almost the first thing I saw was a hint of Tony leaving!

What a shock that was. The very thought of it...! Tony, you are hereby ordered never to entertain such ideas, or even joke about it.

I have no doubt though, that another Society would quickly spring up in its place.

That may be so, but I can't imagine you not being at the helm! By golly, there's so much to think about. I know you meant it in jest, but still, it gets the cogs turning. Makes me wonder what duties we'd all be willing and able to do, should the ghastly day come when you leave. Personally, I would be glad to take on some Journal work, like laying out and formatting the material and producing it as a PDF file or whatever, ready for printing. But the content itself would need someone like Anita to act as editor and overall chief. And the same with the website, for that matter; I can do technical stuff, and I'm happy to do whatever I like with my own website, but I wouldn't feel comfortable making similar decisions about the Society website!

I do get help on the EB Day (some of it paid), but for the other 364 days (365 this year!) I am entirely on my own with day to day running of the Society.

Now that I couldn't help with, in any capacity. Being in the USA is a handicap.

As has already been mentioned, Anita is a 'brick'! On paper the Forums have four administrators, but for various reasons three have gone AWOL for several months. In desperation I plucked up my courage and went into admin and attempted to give Anita administration status. I partially succeeded, but she still appears in purple as I was unable to turn her red!

I feel bad about going AWOL, but unfortunately Enid Blyton always was and always must be a hobby. I've had busy periods before, but have never been so consistently busy as I have since around October 2007. Right now I'm working on about nine different websites, four of which are big, a couple medium sized, and the rest relatively small -- plus a varying number of daily "updates" to existing client websites. I'm happy to say that one of the big jobs alone pays for our trip to England in May, so I'm certainly not complaining -- except I do regret not being able to help out more on the Society website.

That said, just a short while ago I turned Anita red. Tony, don't feel bad about not quite succeeding there. The forum administration panel is horribly complex in some ways, and it seems you have to change the same thing in various different places to make it work. Took me two different attempts, and that's after your own attempt! Anyway, Anita is now at full Administrator level, giving her the power to shoot rays from space if anyone crosses her.

[Keith] started to give us a makeover for the Home Page two months ago, but he has been unable to find the time to do anything more, so for the moment that just remains a pipe dream.

The planned "new look" is not forgotten. It's not a pipe dream, just something that's still in the pipeline. (And before anyone asks, it's not a major revamp we're talking about, just some refreshing here and there.)

Any time I do get to spend on Enid Blyton is usually reading and approving messages on my site, and adding to my blog. I enjoy the blog, and although I'd like to get in at least one post a week, sometimes I don't quite manage that... but that's okay, I guess. Often I have to search for inspiration about what to blog about, so I don't think I could manage much more anyway.

Okay, I'm done for now!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Nice to hear from you, Keith. Tony wasn't talking about leaving of course but, after all these years of working tirelessly for the Society, it's understandable that he may want to take more of a back seat at some time in the future while still having a degree of input.

Like you, I'd be happy to take on some Journal work if required and would be willing to learn any skills needed.

Anita

[Tony Summerfield]

As usual, Anita, you are spot on, and it is nice to see you appearing in red! I have no immediate intentions of jumping into a little boat and rowing away (along with all the rats!), but I was merely pointing out that at present there is too much on one pair of shoulders with my crossing the road and the proverbial bus analogy. This website would of course still be there, but the Society would cease to exist.

Remember also, that I was picturing the situation in four years time and not talking about tomorrow. I have always thought that if a job is worth doing it is worth doing properly and I still have plenty to do in the Book and Magazine rooms.

Just reinforcing the point that Keith made, we are not planning any major structural alterations with the site, we just want to make the front of the house look a bit more attractive and plant a few flowers in the front garden. In doing so I believe that we will encourage more people to look at the inside of the house. The 'Book Room' is actually the most frequented part of the house, though by and large it is used by a completely different clientele to the one that uses the forums regularly. At present I don't think that the front page here is all that user friendly for the novice and I would like to see a few flowers planted on this page as well, so that people can see the sort of books that are in each individual section. The search facility is wonderful and personally I use it all the time, and I know at some stage Keith wants to include the Magazines into it, but he has enough headaches at the moment! Hopefully also at some stage in the future I will be able to add Magazines with Blyton contributions to that section.

In summary I was not trying to be a prophet of doom and gloom, but just trying to inject a bit of realism into things.

[Lucky Star]

Well its good to discuss these things once in a while and great to hear from Keith again. Tony I was especially horrified to read that the last couple of journals have made a loss, surely you dont personally have to cover that? The journals remain amazing value for £10. Other fan clubs/associations charge a lot more than a tenner for vastly inferior publications and I for one would be more than happy to pay a little more for them if a small price rise would help the society out.

The society would simply not be the same without Tony at the helm. As Anita said you must shout if you need help Tony. While its hard to see what the rest of us could do as we're so geographically distant from each other I'm sure many of us would do what we could and we would probably learn something as well so it would be useful on many levels.

Last but not least may I once again echo Moonraker's comments and say that, though we may not say it on a daily basis, we remain very thankful that we have such a hard working and knowledgeable person as yourself to lead our society.

Now dont forget the Green Cross Code.

[Rob Houghton]

I have to echo what Lucky star says about the subscription rates. they are very reasonable and very low. I too would be willing to pay a little more (isnt it £8 at present, not £10?!). Even £10 or £12 for a year wouldnt be that much. The Journals are growing in size, and i was wondering how the subscriptions were covering the printing costs (albeit that our subscriptions are healthy at present).

Yes Tony: you do a sterling job, and thank you for keeping everything running so smoothly and enjoyably for the rest of us.

EDIT: just realised that subscriptions are £8, £10 etc depending on where we all live, but I'd still support a slight rise - it's still very good value for money.

[Tony Summerfield]

No, I don't make up the loss from my own pocket, I'm afraid I couldn't afford to anyway! Recent high turnouts at the EB Day have subsidised Journal losses, so the overall picture is currently quite healthy.

The UK subscription rate is £8 and I have managed to keep it there for about eight years. It is always a very difficult balance and by raising it we could end up worse off if this led to a number of people not resubscribing - already there are those who do not renew as they feel they can't afford it any more. The world situation is even worse, currently £11, and over half of this gets swallowed by the postage! We have only ever had one member from India (good old Prahbu!) and this is a country where EB is almost as popular as she is in the UK. Our most recent member was No. 1250, which perhaps puts it even more into perspective! Even on the forums we attract virtually no Indians, despite the fact that registration is free. I think that perhaps they associate the word 'Society' with cost as other Blyton sites (particularly Keith's) seem to attract a fair number of Indian and Asian participants. Much as I would like to reduce the subscription, even £11 is making a loss, and I can see no easy way round it.