It is the last Friday of the month and I am joining a group of volunteers at Central Office to fold and label the newsletter. Putting out the newsletter is a group effort. Members have written articles, an editor has put it together, a volunteer gets the lables ready, another makes the newsletter available online, someone prints copies for us to mail, and for the Central Office reps to take back to their groups. We laugh and joke and enjoy folding the newsletter.

When I got 60 days, I was told I could go to Central Office and buy a metal chip, and so I did. The manager was working on the newsletter and put me to work on the minugraph machine. I printed, folded, stapled & stamped about 60 copies. I left Central Office with a copy of the newsletter, a metal 2 month chip, and my first experience of volunteering for the newsletter at C.O. complete with purple hands from the ink.

When the first Gulf War occured, our editor was activated in the guard, and I was told I was the new editor. This was pre-computer, and we put it together using cut &paste. The lables were done by hand. A new editor volunteered, and we were mailing over 1000 copies. Volunteers came and we got everything ready. I took the boxes of newsletters to the Post Office bulk mail unit one day, and the clerks there pointed out a goof up. We had the address on the right side and the prepaid postage stamp on the left. The matter was taken to the office manager, and when the clerk returned he told us they would mail it for us on a one time basis. He also said that from now on we had to make sure that our volunteers were sober. We all got a good chuckle out of that.

At one time we mailed over 2000 copies of the newsletter. Our small office would be full of volunteers getting it ready. Once we had 14 people and the office was full. The fire Dept. showed up to do a yearly inspection, and we were told not to have as many people. Now we mail about 250 copies, and many people read the newsletter online. Still a small group meets and volunteers to fold the copies we mail. I look forward to being part of that group on a monthly basis.

-Ron K.