The Smokestack NASBA

[Kelly Anderson]

I received a form letter from Charlie Roth reporting that The Smokestack magazine will no longer be published. https://m.facebook.com/northamericansba ... l&mt_nav=0

With The Smokestack being the only periodical covering our steamboating hobby in the eastern USA, I hope that communication can be maintained, specifically for scheduling of steamboating meets.

Anyone out there with any good ideas?

[RNoe]

In western north America we have the Northwest Steam Society:
https://www.northweststeamsociety.org

Perhaps they can be used for other USA/Canadian meet information, and emulated by other steam organizations nationwide.
RussN

[TahoeSteam]

Shame to hear that. Did he give a reason? Lack of content, lack of subscribers/membership, lack of someone to take up the torch?

If the hobby is to be carried on into the future it would be wise to glom onto the young folks involved and get them working social media... or at least provide hard copy and electronic versions of the publication(s). That being said, those playing on the facegrams and instabooks will need to be supported with content as well. That stuff doesn't come out of a vacuum and it's impossible for one individual to provide all the content.

[Kelly Anderson]

NASBA Letter 001.jpg (121.41 KiB) Viewed 16815 times

[cyberbadger]

Certainly if anyone is willing to get an account on this forum they can make a post in the 'Rally Reports' about a steamboat meet.

An email list where anyone with an email address can subscribe ala listserv might be useful.. There are actually a lot of free marketing services that offer email lists up to 2000 users/2000 emails month for free. For example: Mailchimp, Sendinblue, MailerLite, Benchmark, Omnisend, Sender. I'd imagine a free account could be setup for a particular steamboat meet.

The Steam Boat Association of Great Britain accepts international members.
https://steamboatassociation.co.uk/

The Steam Boat Association of Great Britain's quarterly publication, 'The Funnel' is always looking for good content from members, heck they even let me have a page in one issue.

-CB

[steamdon-jr]

Hello Everyone,

I was what Charlie Roth considered the VP of operations for Smokestack and took care of many things over the past 15 years including Editor for 3 years, Shipping and Receiving, ordering tshirts and burgees, maintaining the database and membership, make and maintain the webpage and facebook page along with many other tasks. It was not a shock to me that the magazine folded but was a very sad day when it did.

We have asked approximately 40 people to take over as editor and nobody and when I say nobody I mean NOBODY stepped up to the helm to take over except for a friend who does not even steamboat and then she got pulled into 14 hour days as she works in a hospital. it was very hard to get people to write articles and stories for the mag and many were always from the same people.

I would like to say it was a pleasure helping everyone enjoy their time reading the magazine and I have personally enjoyed some of the little letters and pictures some of you sent me over the years and I wish all of you a Happy New Year.

by the way the facebook page for smokestack is still currently up, I plan on keeping it up but the name will change and I want to try to exchange info with other assoc across the world so it is kind of a global steamboat page. find it @northamericansba

Thanks and feel free to email or call with ideas or just to talk.
Don Fenstermacher, Jr.
fensty2@comcast.net
215-460-4515

[PeteThePen1]

Sad news indeed. Just a passing thought. Steamboating Magazine that is/was owned by Ron Fossum managed to be international which I think helped the supply of material. Indeed I think many of you on this forum have at times sent stuff to Ron. So, if somebody could be persuaded to be editor and the magazine was to be marketed internationally it might be possible to get a viable circulation base as well as sufficient contributions. And, no I am not stepping up for the task. I value my marriage too much!

Regards

Pete

[TahoeSteam]

Just a thought,

Perhaps an online rag, where folks can submit articles and photographs. A running one perhaps, like a blog of sorts. Just requiring an "editor" to verify facts, appropriateness, or check grammar/spelling. Added benefit of being able to include videos. If someone want a hard copy, they can print from the site.

One could have a 'subscrption' and updates automatically sent through online printing service to get high quality print monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, or whenever there are updates. Noone licking envelopes, other than some printing service somewhere. Billing for printed version could be done online and postage included in price to account for frequency desired.

Take a lot of weight off the shoulders of an editor... In theory

IMO, open source is the only way this stuff is going to survive.

[PeteThePen1]

That sounds a good idea.

I have done a quick initial search and turned up this:

https://www.paperlit.com/blog/3-tools-t ... ne-online/

There will most likely be others but this might be worth a half hour of browsing.

Regards

Pete

[TahoeSteam]

Thank you Pete.

I'll check it out.