Since opinions were solicited, I'll share mine. I don't see a need to scrutinize this email publication, nor engage the Board to micromanage it or its associated staff. I'm neither concerned with a beyond-negligible 17.5 MB of space a YEAR (even if I should choose to archive them rather than deleting after reading), nor an attached Word document for those who prefer that format. Lastly...me and my huge, comfy carbon footprint wonder if by "green initiative" you mean the consumption of fire roasted green chile? 73, Brian N5ZGT ARRL Director, Rocky Mountain Division On the web at www.RockyMountainDivision.org On Tue, 16 Nov 2010, Richard J. Norton wrote:

In my six years on the board, I've always thought that my most significant accomplishment was to get the content of weekly E-mail newsletter, "IN-News," delivered to the board inside the text of the E-mail. Previously it was delivered only as an attached .doc file, which was particularly tedious to read, especially if you were at a high-price-per-minute overseas Internet cafe.

I now reflect back on my supposed accomplishment, and am concerned that I may have harmed the environment more than I've reduced the burden of serving on the ARRL board.

1) The IN-News as delivered today, still has the .doc version attached, unnecessarily at least doubling the size of each E-mail.

2) There is a giant ARRL emblem included at the beginning of each version of the newsletter. Each emblem appears to take up 35k of memory, which is usually over half of the size of the total message. Therefore, with a total of 70k of memory in each E-mail, times 50 E-mails a year, times the last 5 years, means that 17.5 megabytes of space on each computer that saves the messages, is now taken up with 500 giant ARRL emblem images.

Having been an ARRL member for about 55 years, I am well acquainted with the ARRL emblem, and don't fell the need for 17.5 MB of my computer memory to be filled with 500 giant ARRL emblem images.

In the event that most of you do not need the .doc versions of the newsletter, and don't need the giant ARRL emblems, I am proposing that we consider simplifying the newsletters to contain only the E-mail text versions without any emblems. I encourage other board members, particularly those who use the .doc versions and those who are desirous of large ARRL emblems in their computer memories, to express their opposing views.

Should there be consensus for this obviously green initiative, we might get it adopted with either an amendment to the By-laws or simple motion at the January board meeting. Alternatively, our EVP might direct Ms. Kustosik to simply change the IN-News format.

73,

Dick Norton, N6AA