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For the first time in USCA history, voting in the annual elections will be done by individual ballots, mostly mailed in from inserts in the March/April issue of the USCA CRQOUET BULLETIN. HOW MANY U.S.C.A. MEMBERS WILL VOTE IN THE APRIL ELECTIONS? ENTER CW's "ONE-MAN, ONE-VOTE SWEEPSTAKES" AND WIN A PRIZE!
CROQUET WORLD ONLINE MAGAZINE encourages all USCA members to study the issues and make an informed vote.
To make it more interesting, we invite USCA voters to enter CROQUET WORLD ONLINE MAGAZINE's "ONE-MAN, ONE-VOTE SWEEPSTAKES" by E-mailing to the editor your best guess on the number of votes to be tallied in Palm Beach at the USCA Annual Meeting on April 22nd.
Some clues to inform your guess:
- There are approximately 3630 eligible members of the U.S.C.A.
- In general elections in the U.S., turnout of eligible voters generally runs from a low of 50 percent to a high of around 70 percent.
- USCA members have never before voted individually, so many of them will likely not take the trouble to complete the ballot and mail it in.
- There is only one issue of national import on the ballot, having to do with the adjustment of regional boundaries, and this issue most immediately affects only the USCA Members in Colorado and the Virginias.
Take your best guess and E-Mail your number IN THE SUBJECT LINE of your message - anything between 100 and 3630 - to: Bobalman@aol.com.
The best guess will be announced in our next LETTERS AND COMMENTARY column, and the winner's prize will be a complete three-volume set of the Croquet Foundation of America's MONOGRAPH SERIES ON CLUB BUILDING, ORGANIZATION, AND MANAGEMENT.
I'm sure you have already thought about this but anyway, here is an idea. On the handicap listing...if the players had e-mail, could you link their name with their e-mail address? SEARCH FEATURE ON HANDICAP LISTING
CALLS FOR E-MAIL LINKSI know most of my e-mail consists of letters to fellow croquet players. Most players online are on the mail-lists devoted to croquet, so spreading the word about the service wouldn't be too difficult - just MAJOR work on your end. But we really do appreciate it. I just used the new search feature on CRQOUET IN AMERICA's Handicap Listings to look up a friend, and it was easy! Thanks for all the work you do!
--Ronald Turner
Fulks Run Croquet Club, Virginia
You're right, MAJOR work, which we can't afford to undertake without major grant money. It's an interesting idea, but I have to say there are good reasons for not doing it:
- John Taylor's massive listing of croquet E-Mail addresses is published regularly on the Nottingham Board, and so is available to everyone who wants such a comprehensive listing.
- Some people with E-Mail addresses listed on our Web site wind up with E-Mailboxes jammed daily with junk, and we're afraid there might be some relationship between the two.
Under the pressure of getting the news online faster than any croquet publication on paper (not even to mention beating the gossip line) the temptation to write a story or editorial and put it up without benefit of sober review and revision the next day is sometimes irresistable. "We can get this up before the sun rises in Australia," I say to myself, so in a flash, away it goes to Webmaster Bob Henry, 50 miles east as the crow flies, but only a fingertip away in Internet time. "SOMETIMES I HATE MYSELF THE MORNING AFTER," SAYS THE EDITOR
It's only the next morning that I begin to be plagued by nagging doubts - especially if I had sent in a sensitive story without having co-editor Mike Orgill review it first: Did I get that name spelled right? Should I have checked one more source on the dates? Did I get the other side of the story, without bias? Would it have been better to wait for confirmation? Was my prose a little too purple? Did I editorialize more than the subject warranted? Did the spin I put on the story turn into a wobble?
But the hard fact is that these things can only be seen after the story is "cold" - the next morning, at the earliest. So I beg the readers' indulgence for too-frequent errors, and In recompense we can promise to correct immediately the worst of them - either by online revision, or by recourse to this LETTERS AND COMMENTARY page, which appears at frequent intervals.
We welcome letters of correction as well as publishable letters of opinion or commentary on any subject related to croquet or the content or management of the Web site.
The Web site now prints out at more hundreds of pages than we have taken the time to count, and new content is added weekly. Mistakes and omissions are inevitable, but in this medium, they can be correctly quickly. Please help us maintain ourselves as not only the most substantial croquet Web site, but also the most accurate and current. Send your editorial E-Mail to: bobalman@aol.com. And on technical matters, you can reach Webmaster Bob Henry through our new "Webmaster's Forum."
--Bob Alman,. Editor
CROQUET WORLD ONLINE MAGAZINE / CROQUET IN AMERICA
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