Allan,

I greatly appreciate your efforts to save our club money and roll over the savings into an improved end product.

What has been missing in this discussion (it may have been brought up, but I've been kinda busy the last few weeks and might have missed it) is the nature of the card stock cover pages of the magazine.

My copy of the club mag was also damaged when I received it. I receive numerous catalogs very similar to those mentioned by folks posting on this subject who claim that they are thicker and don't arrive at your mailbox chewed up like our club mag was. The difference is the card stock binder. ...at least in part. Advertising catalogs front and back pages are printed on the same thickness of paper as are the rest of the pages in those catalogs, or the cover pages are only slightly thicker. When a card stock page runs into a barrier in a mail sorter, damage happens to that page. When a paper stock page runs into a barrier, it gives, folds over and hopefully folds back. ...even when it doesn't, anyone expecting a Cabela's catalog wasn't paying for the privilege to be on their mailing list, much less expecting to receive the magazine in good condition.

Perhaps in your quest to both improve the mag and save money, you jumped over an alternative or interim measure. Heavy stock bound magazines are frequently delivered in a clear plastic wrapper. Ink jetting the recipient's info on the cover would be a cost-saving plus. A 3-mil clear "baggy" that each mag is slid into would still be effective for ink jet address labeling, and would/should offer a less expensive way to handle sending the club mag in the pre-printed white envelopes.

If the publisher is already set up to plastic-wrap the magazine, total costs would/should be reduced. No printing on the big white envelope with the club logo, no printing of the member's mailing address. No chance of that card stock front page raising up and jamming any postal sorting machinery.

Bob