One year of Ship, Sea and Sail Mail
A year ago, we enthusiastically began the relaunch of Zee- en Scheepspost, and, a little later, Zeilpost. Time to tell how this first year went and what is happening behind the scenes.
Who does what?
The Zeepost Foundation board consists of Jan Marijt (treasurer), Cockie Schilperoort (secretary), Cosmo Wassenaar (member) and Marja Goud (chair). The editorial board consists of Peter Fokkens (chief editor) and editorial board members Klaas Jan Hoeve, Servaas van Dusseldorp. A lot of work is also done by web administrator Willem Bast. Occasionally (e.g. during holidays), a number of board members assist the editorial team.
What went well?
Board and editors feel supported by all the enthusiastic reactions to the continuation of the posts, contributions from sponsors and advertisers, and messages from readers. A relaunch costs more time and money in the first phase: a lot of work had to be done administratively, editorially and technically.
In November, the Wouter van Dusseldorp Good News Award was awarded for the second time during the Traditional Ship Show, this time to Doe eens Wad. Through this challenge trophy, we aim to annually highlight a good initiative that deserves more public attention.
What needs to be improved?
At the moment, we cannot yet meet all our obligations based on sponsor and advertiser contributions and reader contributions. Of the readers/subscribers who receive a weekly post in their mailbox, fortunately some 15% actually pay a contribution. We are grateful for that, but that percentage is far too small, and certainly needs to go up to achieve healthy operations.
Another setback in the first year was that many advertising agreements turned out to be ongoing. We thus took over some advertising obligations after Walter’s death, without the corresponding income.
And apart from the finances, we think there is also room for improvement in the contact with our readers. To this end, we have several plans, about which more elsewhere in this issue.
What can we use help with?
As a reader, you help us enormously with an annual contribution of at least 20 euros. Make that one of your good intentions and implement it right away! It will ensure that we can continue our work. In addition, we could use some reinforcements on the volunteer editorial team.
As a reader of the posts, you may have a network of your own that makes you well informed about (local) news. We would appreciate it if you tip us off and supply news items. These can be articles published elsewhere, but also press releases from the organisation where you yourself are active. It is important that the texts and images are royalty-free and may therefore be used (with or without attribution). In particular, we are always looking for sharp, high-resolution images that can be used for more general articles: sailing ships, guests at work, crew working in or with the rigging, harbour images; we can use a lot. So take a look in your archives and send us some nice pictures!
Marja Goud,
chair of the Zeepost Foundation.
Image: The base is a cartoon by Fritz Ahlefeldt of Hiking Artists.com
Windassist sponsor