A response from President Dave Jones to the recent email from the Alumni Association/Foundation concerning Communications. Classmates are also requested to send their comments to Mr. Marchant and the Association/Foundation.

Dear Byron et al,

Not too long ago the Alumni Association ran a survey purportedly to discover what its members thought of the Association, of Shipmate and what their priorities were. I think they were surprised when the great proportion of the respondents said in effect that their number one priority was the Class News Section of Shipmate with the Last Call Section coming in second. They were not very interested in the Alumni Association/Foundation and now that they have basically been disenfranchised by the Association/Foundation they probably are even less interested. If you go ahead and cut Shipmate as you say you will I think you will lose a lot of Alumni Support--you definitely will lose my support and I wrote the '53 Column for 24 tears and now am the '53 President. I have been a member of the President's Circle for a number of years but that too is going to stop. When will you people learn that the Association is for the Alumni themselves and not for the Trustees and the Foundation? I guess never as we no longer are allowed a vote or say except for one hand selected regional trustee. Please pass this on to my Classmate Carl Trost (he does not have a computer) and let the money people know that my contributions are ended. Dave Jones, President Class of 1953 

Note: If you did not receive the email from the Alumni/Foundation concerning Shipmate reduction, please click here

 

Dave,

I totally agree with your stance regarding the handling of the Alumni Association and the impending cut back of "SHIPMATE".   Reducing the mailing of this important magazine to five per year will lead to its demise.  Not every body uses computers and getting USNA information is much better done through a well produced hard copy periodical.  How in the world will the class corresponding secretary keep class information organized and flowing with such gaps between issues?

I'll pass on my thoughts to Byron Marchant who probably is only looking at costs and not the overall value we derive from this presently well run and timely magazine. By the way, republishing the "LOG" and doing away with "SHIPMATE" doesn't make sense.

Jim Rodgers, USNA '53

 

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