Delivery of UCO Reporter

I wish there were a better way for our association to get the UCO Reporter each month. The system that was in place, and apparently is back in place now, was for one representative for all the Sheffields (or Chathams, Oxfords, etc.) to pick up ALL the magazines for the Sheffields and be responsible for delivering them. This just hasn't worked for us, perhaps because we are one of the largest groups of associations (17 in all). We have tried but to no avail.

It is too much to expect any one person to do this month after month. Some have done this for a year or more, gotten virtually no cooperation, and then had to give it up. One of our residents tried assigning a month to each association (A through Q). In theory this should have worked and shouldn't have been a burden, for, after all, each association representative would only have had to do the job once in 17 months. But it didn't work, because there just wasn't the cooperation, and the poor person in charge ended up doing the job herself many times. Finally, she gave it up. I can't blame her.

The problem is more than an unwillingness to pitch in, I think, though. People are always moving, and the responsible association owners and board members are always changing, so today's list of volunteers is completely outdated six months later. There has to be a better way, especially for the larger groups of associations like ours.

Why not have the UCO Reporter delivered just as your daily newspaper is? Well, apparently other groups of associations were having the same sort of delivery problem we were having, so for two months this summer the magazine was delivered. At long last, we thought: the solution.

Now UCO has reverted back to the old system. "Why?" I asked. The answer I got from Irving Lazar (who is doing the best job he can, I believe) was twofold. First, and primarily, the cost of printing the magazine had gone up, so we no longer could afford to pay for the delivery. Second, the delivery took a long time, a good week, I think Irving said.

I would like to address both these points. With regard to the cost of production, it just happened I said to Irving a couple of months before (when I was FINALLY "allowed" to pick up the magazines for just our association) that it must cost quite a bit to print the magazine. His answer surprised me. He said we actually MAKE money on the magazine, and it seemed he meant quite a bit, because of the number of ads. When I saw him more recently (and was "allowed" to pick up only ONE copy of the magazine and told I would have to wait a week to pick up enough for our association!), I said, "With that extra money from the ads you told me about, why can't the delivery continue to be paid for?" He answered, honestly, I'm sure, that this was out of his hands, a decision made "higher up." It sounded to me as though a decision had been made to siphon off the extra money there had been to pay for non-magazine shortfalls.

As for delivery of the magazines taking a week or longer (due partly, Irving said, to the fact delivery was done by an open golf cart, so when it rained, delivery was postponed), I don't think its taking a week was really all that bad. We certainly got the magazine faster than under the old (and now again current) system. And surely the kind of delivery vehicle could be improved upon in time. Get someone with a station wagon, such as the Palm Beach Post uses.

The UCO Reporter is THE most important means of communication we have in the Village. Far more people read the Reporter than go to any meetings. It is important it be delivered in a timely fashion. Newspapers arrange for their own delivery right to your door. You don't have to have a representative run to the Palm Beach Post plant and pick up copies. The UCO Reporter should operate in the same way. Money from the ads should go toward the magazine production AND DELIVERY. Then, and only then, if funds are left over, perhaps they could go elsewhere.

An efficiently run delivery service would save a lot of work for the UCO personnel, would save a lot of work on the part of the volunteers who now distribute them, and would result in the news getting out promptly rather than weeks later.

Lanny Howe