Over eighteen months ago in Issue 1 of The Herald I asked members to get involved with Great Lakes, whether it was recruiting gamers to join, sending in articles to the newsletter, or volunteering to help with future conventions. In Issue 2 I repeated the same plea. In Issue 5 my entire column was directed on ways that members could get involved. In number 7 I stated that I was dismayed with the attendance at the annual membership meeting and again made a pitch for help. Well, I feel no longer frustrated in my efforts to get the members to help. Why this sudden change in mindset? Well, I attended the HMGS East membership meeting held Saturday, March 9th at Cold Wars. With a current membership base of over 1,100, only 40 members attended the meeting. A measly 3.64%! A quorum didn't exist until halfway through the meeting when some late risers straggled in. At Great Lake's last membership meeting we had around a dozen attendees, with a membership at the time of over 85. That's an attendance of 14%. Now if the all powerful East chapter can do no better than our neophyte chapter then I'm starting to feel pretty good about the contributions that our members have made thus far. And every day it seems that we are getting more gamers to join or volunteer to run games at Advance The Colors '96. So from now on I will only sing the praises of those of you who have helped and leave my shameless pleading out of my column. Members of Great Lakes, you are doing a damn fine job!

However, this new found enlightenment does not mean that I still won't address issues that concern me or bring up topics that the members need to be notified of. Right now, Great Lakes is doing better than many expected, and we still can do better. Advance The Colors '96 is shaping up to be a really great con. We already have verbal commitments for the majority of the available dealer tables. We are about two months ahead of last year's con in terms of planning. Press releases have already been sent out to all of the hobby magazines and newsletters, therefore the con should be listed in at least two issues of all the publications (maybe even two issues of The Courier!). I have talked to gainers across the region about running events, so we should be able to send out a pre-registration booklet which will list a wide variety of events. By the time you read this over 25 hobby shops across the region will have been bombarded with con flyers and membership forms. We will be doing direct mailing to historical gamers to notify them of the con which will include membership and event forms. The board is doing its best to improve upon the moderate success that we saw last year. And we are doing it far cheaper than last year! The Radisson is costing us 42% less than the OSU Union. And they are providing us with free parking which should save gainers another four to twelve dollars. And we are reducing the amount of admission from ten dollars for members down to six dollars. But the convention is not the only thing we are trying to accomplish.

Many of you have probably noticed our membership out-of-state (i.e. Ohio) continues to grow. We have been using a direct mailing to potential members to encourage them to join. This seems to be working very well. So far we have mailed out to Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana. We still have a rather large list in Michigan and Ohio to cover. We will be sending out membership forms to these gamers soon.

But let's not stop there. In this issue you will notice that we have added another hobby shop to our Friends of Great Lakes listing, the Sidney Hobby Shop in Sidney, Ohio. Glenn Davis runs the shop and he is one of the hobby's true gentlemen. Thanks, Glenn, for helping Great Lakes be even better!

And...you will also note in this issue a listing of events that will be held at The Tin Soldier in Dayton. HMGS Great Lakes has reserved the second Sunday of each month for gaming. Doors open at 12:00 on Sundays so come on out and enjoy some fine gaming.

Is that all? No! We have also contacted the Greater Dayton Wargaming Club and will start listing their games also. Any one is welcome to come to The Tin Soldier the third Saturday of each month to enjoy one of their games. You will notice that we have started listing our local gaming organizations to help our members find more gamers in their area. We would like to list more of these groups so those of you who want some from PR should send in a brief paragraph about your group, where the group meets, and a contact person. Send the info to The Herald.