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Explore, enjoy and protect the planet |
 
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Letter from the Chair it's spring, and change is in the air We're making some major changes that all of our members should know about.
This combined April/May issue of The Compass is the first double issue in our 2006 9-issue publishing schedule. This change is part of our strategy to make the most cost-effective use of our entire package of communications tools. At a printing and mailing cost of over $1500 per issue, The Compass is the most expensive and resource-consuming part of our communications toolkit, and the deadline schedule makes it unsuitable for communicating time-sensitive information. So we're reducing our reliance on The Compass and enhancing our use of electronic communications to create an efficient and seamlessly integrated communications package. All of the newsletter content is now posted on our website in an easy-to-read format, and it goes up at least a week before the paper hits your mailbox. Links to the content are included in the Dallas Sierra Club News email. You can help us save money and trees by subscribing to the News email and opting out of paper delivery of The Compass. Instructions for doing both are on our website, www.dallassierraclub.org. While you're signing up for the News email, consider subscribing to our other lists, too: the Outings and Singles lists and the brand new Conservation list. In order to gather reliable data on our members' use of The Compass and make a well-informed decision about our 2007 publishing schedule, we will be conducting a telephone survey of a random sample of members this spring and summer. If you get a call, please take a moment to answer our volunteer's questions. There will be no fundraising element to the call, and your response will help us gather important information for future decisions. General Meeting Starting in June, our monthly general meeting will be moved to the second Tuesday evening, and the location will change to the Center for Spiritual Living near Spring Valley and the North Dallas Tollway. This lovely facility accommodates 300 people and features full audio-visual capability and a large area for our members to gather and visit the information tables. Please note the April and May meetings will continue to be on the second Wednesday at Greenhill School. We will announce the meting change and directions to the new location on the email lists and on our website, and we will telephone as many people as possible to make sure that everyone is notified of the change. The general meeting is our "front door" to the public, and changing the meeting day will allow those who participate in midweek religious activities to find their way to the Sierra Club as well. We're seeing the emergence of environmental awareness and activism in faith communities driven by an ethic of good stewardship of God's creation. This is an exciting and promising development, and the first step in forging alliances to work with faith communities on common goals is for us to make our meetings more accessible to members of those communities. Change is difficult and is never universally approved. We know the meeting change will be an inconvenience for some of our members, but we believe that on balance it will contribute to our group's effectiveness. Remember that the general meeting is only one of many ways to participate in the Dallas Sierra Club. Check out the long list of volunteer opportunities on our website. Go to a meeting of the ExCom, Outings Committee or Conservation Committee and find a way to get involved that works with your schedule. We appreciate your understanding and patience as we implement changes that are carefully designed to make the best use of all of the resources available to us. Ann Drumm |