Last summer an avid reader of THE COURIER showed up at my home and "wanted to see the printing presses"! Others have written suggesting that they envision fancy offices, plush carpets, a luscious secretary (or was that lascivious?). I suppose that this mental image along with the professional look we attempt to give the magazine goes a long way toward explaining the often strident letters we get complaining about "late issues" of THE COURIER. We, the three partners - Leo Cronin, Joe Miceli and myself, are more likely to shake our heads in awe that we get each issue out in reasonable time at all. We, all three, have full time jobs with a level of responsibility that demands more than a 40 hour week, we have families to placate, homes to maintain, figures to paint and we even try to get a game in once and again. THE COURIER is a part time effort that is edited and printed in Massachusetts, typeset in Vermont, pasted-up in New York from material sent in from all over the world and reviewed by editors as far away from the "home office" (read 'basement') as England and California. The printer fits our 5000+ print run in amongst his 20+ magazines with print runs in excess of 100,000 each when and as he can. Finally - 3rd class mail takes 2 to 4 weeks for delivery depending on your distance from us. (foreign subscribers often wait 6 to 8 weeks as it goes by boat - unless they pay $30.00 for airmail). Believe me when I say that it only takes one late mail run or one item lost in the mail to cause a large delay in the issue. It is any wonder that we miss our goal dates from time to time? This last time (III-4) there were several weeks of delay at the typesetter compounded by an additional delay at the printer as we tried to get the Origins pre- registration form into that issue (the form will be mailed separately to all our readers). I am sorry that this delay deprived you from voting on the Origins Awards Nominating ballot. We have set up a schedule that should' have us mailing THE COURIER during the 1st month of its cover date by the end of 1982. But that goal is limited by the "forces" described above and we may never be truly "on time". The readers will have to decide if our content, approach, and. service to the hobby is worth the extra wait! ORIGINS'82 Origins '82 will, though the efforts of the Historical Miniature Gaming Society, have the most events of interest to Historical Garners ever consolidated under one convention roof. Now is the time to "put your money where your mouth is" - Come to Origins, help generate the largest gathering of historical gamers ever. Let's show the convention organizers and hobby suppliers that we are a market - a force, if you will - to be dealt with. See you there! Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. III #5 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1982 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com