THE EDITORS' AWARDS PANEL
[Concept by Hans Frommer; comments by Richard Amyx]

I. The Awards Panel. The Awards Panel shall be composed of any five members in good standing of American Mensa, with the following exceptions.

A. Practicing local group newsletter editors.

B. The AMC Publications Officer (who, as custodian of the program, should not be a voting member of the panel).

II. Term of the Awards Panel. Two years.

III. Selecting the Panel. The panel shall be selected by the local group newsletter editors as follows.

A. During the month of July of each even-numbered year, the Publications Officer shall request that local group newsletter editors bring forth nominations for panel members.

B. During the month of August, the Publications Officer shall contact the nominees to determine their willingness to serve on the panel.

C. During the month of September, the Publications Officer shall distribute a ballot of those nominees who are willing to serve to the newsletter editors.

D. The editors shall vote for five nominees and return the ballot to the Publications Officer by October 1.

E. The Publications Officer shall tally the votes and declare the five nominees receiving the greatest number of votes to be members of the Awards Panel.

IV. Panel's Basis of Voting.

A. The panel members shall be added to the subsidy program special mailing list. (And here we must decide what to do with the special mailing subsidy.)

B. The panel members shall vote according to their own criteria for excellence. (I have rejected the suggestion for a set list of judging criteria for two reasons. First, presumably, the panel members will be ex-editors or others who have had experience with local group newsletters, and should not need to be told what makes a good newsletter. Second, one reason for using a panel is to get the benefit of each member's individual talents. To use a set list of criteria would simply be asking the panel members to judge according to somebody else's standards.)

V. Voting Categories. (I have expanded the number from three to four as a sort of compromise measure. Obviously, the very large groups have resource bases and realize volume economies that others do not, and the very small groups often have to get along on shoestrings. It would, however, seem ludicrous to me to create, say, a "supergroup" (1000+ circulation) category with seven contestants vying for two honors while twenty-five would have to tiff it out elsewhere. Four categories will tend to separate out the very large and very small groups, and the category boundaries will be adjusted from year to year to try to keep approximately the same number of newsletters in each one. Further, there will be only two awards per category rather than three. With three awards in four categories, fifteen percent of the newsletters would win an award each year.)

A. Large group (approximately 500+)

B. Medium-large group (approximately 250-500)

C. Medium-small group (approximately 150-250)

D. Small group (approximately 150-)

E. Owl Award (One award only for overall best newsletter—to be continued in its present form only if Mensa is willing to spend $50 for the award. Cybis is no longer giving us owls.)

F. Special Mention (One award only given to that newsletter which, though it may not be best in its category, does merit notice for its graphics, improvement, columnists, etc.)

VI. The Panel Voting.

A. On May 1 of each year, the Publications Officer shall request the panel to make its selections. (There are two options here, outlined as B. and C. below.)

B. By June 1, the members of the panel shall submit to the Publications Officer their first, second, and third choices in each category. The Publications Officer shall then assign weighted values to each vote and determine the winners by a method of weighted averages. (I seriously doubt that the panel would represent a large enough voting population for this method to work well.)

C. The panel shall elect one of its members to serve as chairman. During the month of May, the panel members shall discuss their choices among themselves, and by June 1, the chairman shall announce the panel's selection of winners to the Publications Officer. (This, I feel, is the way the panel should work. However, I also feel that the AMC should be willing to underwrite long-distance telephone costs.)

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