We are striving to catch up to where we should be in terms of issues produced for this calendar year. This issue of SAGA should put us back in the right direction. I wish to thank those of you who have taken the time to write, expressing your thoughts and opinions. Without you, there would be no SAGA and no reason to bother with attempting to even publish this journal.

I received the latest issue of SPEARPOINT in the mail. I hadn't realized that such hard times have fallen upon the hobby, though my own fall-off in subscribers (roughly 10%) led me to believe that we were experiencing a dip in interest. Yet, at the same time, SLINGSHOT in England has seen an increase in enrollment.

True, the vast qualitative difference in article submissions between the various journals is quite striking, but I cannot help but believe that a large measure of our lack of recruiting success has to do with the fact that we are not as zealously seeking out new gamers as once was the case.

This, at least on my part, has certainly been the case lately. I am happy to game with the same group of old acquaintances who I,ve known for the past two or more decades. We all get along, have watched each others children grow and eventually leave home, have had parties and family get-togethers--all in all, we are like a large, extended, hobby related family.

Occasionally, someone will sell his figures and drop out of gaming. There are any number of reasons for this. Marriage, divorce, a new job, a major move away from the area...or just plain boredom with the existing status quo, all have been instrumental in causing our group to slowly shrink over the years. Sometimes, a gamer will drop back into the hobby (I'm currently trying to re-recruit Dave Armer back into the hobby), certainly many of you have been through this cycle.

How can we expand our base of gaming friends? One way is to be up front about your interests. At work, often the new employees will look a bit askance at me as I show them photos of our games and describe the action. But, musicians are a strange lot anyway, so who can throw stones, right? In any event, once in GREAT while, I get lucky and find someone who has that spark of interest. Rare, very rare, but hope springs eternal....

At our local club, I am going to be putting on a game of FGWU this month. Now the boys in the club have not played any ancients, Dark Ages or even Renaissance other than an odd game of DBA once a year. I have six definitely interested in playing and another four or five who want to watch. To these guys, ancient history is the ACW! It has been exciting to see the interest and enthusiasm shown for trying out a relatively unheard of rules system.

All I am saying is that we must take a chance and try to find the gamers to help the hobby grow. If any of you have a local club and would like a copy of SAGA to pass around, let me know and I'll send it along with your next issue. Need some figures? Let me and Jamie know. We can scrounge up some pieces to get the newcomers going.

If we all try, there is no reason this hobby cannot continue to thrive in the future. We have several good rules sets available (with FGWU due out soon, as well), tons of lead for any conceivable army, and willing teachers in many of us. All it takes is the will to try. Until next time....