CREG journal 97 now published

[David Gibson]

CREG journal 97 - the March 2017 issue - is now online at http://bcra.org.uk/cregj and will be mailed to subscribers by the end of next week, although hopefully sooner. I will post another message when the paper edition goes in the post.

Online subscriptions:

People occasionally ask: how do I tell when my online subscription has expired? The answer to that is: when you go online and get a message saying " this subscription has expired". The reasoning behind this, when I set the system up, was that you wouldnt need to know that your subscription had expired until you tried to use it.

However, Rob would like me to email people in advance, to nudge them into renewing on time but, unfortunately, that's a bit difficult with the present system, although Im working on it. When Ive tried it, in the past, it tended to result in people emailing me to ask why they were being reminded, when they already knew.... so you cannot please everyone. [The reason is that you get one reminder per email address, and if you renewed using a different address, you look like two different people].

For paper subscriptions, its different. There's a reminder printed on the envelope and, if you miss it, I will, eventually, remind you by email. If you pay online for a paper subscription, you'll be emailed a user-id for free online access. If you pay by cheque, you are not currently issued with an online id. (Although that might change when I revise the software later this year).

[David Gibson]

• CREG Journal 97 - The March issue - was put online on 1 March and now, after some delay (apologies), has been posted to subscribers today.
• I can also announce that the full set of CREG back-issues is now available online.
• If your CREG subscription has now expired, it will say so on the wrapper. Please renew at http://creg.org.uk/renew
• The next CREG field meeting will be on 19-21 May in the Mendips. This co-incides with the BCRA field meeting to the Gower Peninsula. Apologies for the clash but there are only a limited number of weekends in the year.
• Hidden Earth, the annual caving conference, will be in the Mendips on 29 Sept - 1 Oct.

CREG back-issues online
See http://bcra.org.uk/cregj Thanks to Rob for scanning the missing issues. Some of the older issues are bit-map scans rather than digital copies. At some point, we might address this, but it is not straightforward to open up an old Word document and expect it to lay out properly. And, to be honest, OCR-ed bit-maps are probably good enough for most purposes.

Subscription renewals
See http://creg.org.uk/renew Due to pressure of work, I will probably not email any renewal reminders this time, so please take notice of the message on your wrapper. Eventually, when I update the software, renewal messages will be issued automatically.

Mailing list problems
One of the reasons for the delay in posting journal 97 was that my time was occupied with trying to solve a particularly difficult problem with the Mailman mailing lists hosted at bcra.org.uk and at caves.org.uk. My message to this list on 6 March explains the problems in detail. In brief, lists like this are quite "old technology" and are not compatible with today's Internet practices. One result of this is that messages often do not get delivered. If this is the first CREG-announce message you have seen for some time, this may well be an indication that we have solved the problem. You can always check the archives if you want to double-check, or visit this forum where we also post CREG items... unless we forget.