I'm not sure one oversight out of 2,500 warrants a dismissal. From reading the posts (this is what the posts say...

Brien... "Who do I contact to ask why?" 2/16/03 5:38 a.m.

Ralph... "As I told you in a email a couple of days ago, your membership expired Dec 31 of last year." 2/16/03 9:48 a.m.

Brien... "I renewed my membership online on January 1st. the order number was #135910 and was billed to my credit card." 2/16/03 10:18 a.m.

James P. "I guess daily diligence doesn't include checking with anyone to see if what you claim about paying your dues has any merit." 2/16/03 12:47 p.m.

Based purely on the posts, Brien is asking who to contact about his missing newsletter. The next post by Ralph mentions contact two or more days prior to Brien's post regarding his membership. Brien's next post states his membership was renewed on 1/1/03.

With the above facts, it appears Brien made contact with Ralph and Ralph replied (this would what James P. posted). Reading Ralph's reply, it appears Brien never made mention of the fact that he renewed his membership on 1/1/03. It appears by these posts that this is the first mention by Brien to Ralph that he renewed his membership on 1/1/03. Do you really want to vote out Ralph based on these facts?

This is only MY interpretation of these posts. Only Ralph and Brien could provide additional "facts".

P.S. What is Ralph's duties? He receives memberships, prints mailing labels, delivers the newsletters to the P.O., sends out renewal letters, makes good on missing/damaged newsletters, etc.? Having done this myself on two separate occasions, I personally only offered subscriptions as 1st class mail (after trying to offer bulk & 1st class on the first two issues). The difference in postage was small (for a 6 ounce magazine, about $5 annually). Instead of passing along the cost of the additional postage to the subscribers, I was able to renegotiate better rates with the printer to absord the 1st class postage (I was using 90 lb for the cover and 60 lb for the inside pages, I went to a 60 lb cover and 24 lbs inside to decrease weight and costs). I would separate the newsletters into two groups... Zones 4, 5 and International would ship one day earlier than Zones 1, 2 & 3. The two newsletters had memberships of 2,000+ and 800+ and most subscribers would receive their newsletters the same day. This saved me a lot of anguish and money in the long run... less anguish since everyone received it within a day of each other and money, because undeliverable 1st class mail is returned to the sender.