Urban myth or proven fact?

[Rob M.]

Re: I'll do it

All,

If the restorer wouldn't print it (which I would seriously doubt) I would be more than willing to publish it all on the web to perserve the knowledge from this car for future generations. Please take a zillion photo's of each detail of this car for us youngsters to get our cars right for now and in the future...

greetings,
Rob Musquetier
The Netherlands.




The C1 1959 Corvette Restoration Project

[Terry M.]

If it doesn't get written and submitted

then it surely can not be printed. The content of The Restorer has to be of interest to all 15,000 members. That almost automatically means that some of every issue will be uninteresting to some of the membership. Rest assured that if there was an article of interest to all the membership, I would print it. I would bet if I did a whole issue on one car, more than a few would complain that it wasn't the year they were interested in.

[Patrick H.]

Depends which car.

Then again, there are very few cars that could fill an issue and be interesting to all. Very few come to mind but I believe they are out there.

Patrick

[Robert W.]

Re: If it doesn't get written and submitted

I believe Jerry made an offer that can't be refused. I believe any unmolested car that is out there that hasn't been monkeyed with should be documented if the owner doesn't object and an article published in the Restorer to verify factory versus undocumented beliefs. I also am no writer but would be willing to work on such a car. I don't think there really is that many out there. If one of us "non writer" volunteers can't put it in a format that is publishable I would think with your ability you would help for the historical aspect. Not trying to create work for you but my impression is you are a very knowledgeable and talented individual who could help those of us less talented.

[Terry M.]

Re: If it doesn't get written and submitted

We have published documentation type stories in the past, and there is another one in the next magazine you will receive. If I get the material, I can put the story together. The problem I have is that I am not an expert on all, or even a significant number of, Corvette years. Someone else, who is knowledgeable in that specific year, has to do that kind of detail work at the car. No one has to be a writer. That part we can handle at this end.

[G B.]

My thoughts

I doubt the majority of NCRS members prefer 50% of the magazine to be coverage of road tours, show results, and social events. I think the majority of the members want to read articles about individual cars and technical subjects.

Please note that I said "about" cars, not "written by" a car. I have yet to meet a member who wants to hear Shirley, the talking '79, gush about the loving care she gets from her master.

In the past, The Restorer would seek out special cars and write them up. Has it now evolved into a newsletter that only prints what is submitted by members?

[Chuck S.]

Shirley (snicker)...

Jerry, I hope our paths cross before that great National Convention in the sky...You sound like a guy I would like to know. Are you sure you're not from Texas?

In fairness to Terry, though, I believe the trend away from pithy restoration and documentation had started before he took the helm. The first thing I did on joining the NCRS more than a decade ago was to order all the back issues of the Restorer that I got get; I read them like we used to read a "Hardy Boys" mysteries because they were jam-packed with all kinds of good Corvette stuff.

As you say, the character between the old Restorers and the new are very different. It may have to do with the willingness of members (like you and me) to dedicate the time and effort necessary to prepare good articles about our special cars and restoration techniques.

[Dick W.]

Re: Shirley (snicker)...

Chuck, I agree with you. John Amgwert had started the trend toward printing mostly what the members sent in. There is a lot of technical knowledge out in the membership that needs to be shared with the rest of us. Just editing and laying out what is printed now takes a lot of time. Come on guys, we know that you give at the office, but try giving to the Restorer.

[John H.]

Technical Articles

Note that "Variable Activity" #2 in the new Chapter Awards Program requires that Large/Medium/Small Chapters must have 8/6/4 technical articles submitted for publication each year in their Chapter Newsletter, which can then be submitted for publication in the "Restorer". There are plenty of members out there, but it's much more difficult than you'd think to get any of them to put together a technical article (even though many of them probably do it fairly regularly as part of their job at work).

Share your knowledge and experience - write a technical article!

[Reba Whittington]

Articles for RESTORER

As has been noted by others, Terry does not write the magazine; he only has whatever members send him. And don't forget that the Founders' Award requires the applicant to write a publishable article. Some folks are not hands-on mechanical or technical people, but they still enjoy driving their Corvettes and displaying them, so they write what they know and do.

If you don't like the make-up of the magazine, put your word processor to work and send some articles. Terry can always use these.

[G B.]

I guess that answers my question

So the Restorer is now an all-volunteer magazine that only contains articles submitted by members. I expected it to have original content from the NCRS professional staff too, but it appears I'm expecting too much.

For what little it's worth, I used to work on articles with Mike Hunt back the seventies. He was the volunteer '56-7 editor at the time. I wrote about a dozen articles myself during the nineties. They were no great shakes, so I understand why you didn't notice them.

[Terry M.]

Re: I guess that answers my question

Yes Jerry The Restorer is now, for the most part, written by the members. I do not have the knowledge of C1, C2, later C3, or C4 - so it would be foolish for me to try to write anything technical about those cars. On occasion you will find me authoring a story of an NCRS event, but my job is to encourage members to perform that task as well.
I have returned three technical articles, out of perhaps a hundred that have submitted. One author requested anonymity, which I refused to do, and the other two required further research. A number of the remainder required my assistance to the author. I believe I can make a greater contribution to the knowledge base by helping authors with their research, than by undertaking research myself.
Additionally, The Restorer editor's job has been a part-time position since publication of The Restorer and The Driveline were separated. At that time the management of NCRS dictated coverage of Regional meets and the National Road Tour in The Restorer as well as posting of the awards earned at all NCRS meets. Their objective was to increase participation in these activities by publicizing them. Meet attendance has increased, but could be greater. I would guess that if we got to the point that a majority on the membership participated the events, publicizing them would become superfluous, but that is speculation on my part.
I have received positive comments from some members regarding non-technical articles, but I would expect this audience to be heavily pro technical articles. My challenge is to make the magazine interesting to all 15,393 members. I don't expect to please all of the people all of the time, but I believe we are satisfying most of the members most of the time. I frequently receive unsolicited positive comments at the meets I attend (sometimes even at non-NCRS events), and we have received recognition from the hobby press for every year which I have been editor.

[Mark S.]

Re: I guess that answers my question

Terry: Has there been any thought of going back to offering a "Restorer Shirt" or some other incentive for the encouragement of an article submission?

[Terry M.]

Re: I guess that answers my question

No Mark, there has not - at least not that anyone has communicated to me.
The purpose of such awards is to build up the article database. I currently have a good backlog (some may say too large) of articles. Except for those that have some time related material in them, the backlog is about a year.

[Mark S.]

Re: I guess that answers my question

Thanks Terry! I was just trying to find a possible solution. PS Congrats on your induction!