Greenbelt Cooperator

ACTING EDITOR'S REPORT TO JOURNALIST CLUB ON STATE OF COOPERATOR

First of all I want to express my appreciation of the hard work that has been done by everybody connected with the Cooperator. In the midst of summer heat and summer holidays, and with little hope for tangible reward, workers have always been found to get the Cooperator out each week. The Masthead of the Cooperator is a true Roll of Honor of people who have given till it hurt of their time and energy, for the sake of seeing a truly social minded paper in Greenbelt.

Now as to the present state of the paper. Editorially I believe we may be pleased. We have a group of forceful and effective writers, and are developing several good Feature Columns (See REPORT page nineteen)
REPORT (contd. from page eight)

and sections. It is noteworthy that the paper is a true expression of the community's thought and activity, containing practically no reprints.

During the summer we have purposely kept the paper small, to relieve the smaller staff of too great a chore.

We have been concentrating on organization and by fall when the present staff turns over its responsibilities we hope to have Neighborhood News beats as well as other news beats well established and reporters assigned to each. We have already added several Features and expect to add one or two more soon.

We are always glad to consider new ideas.

So from the standpoint of content I believe the Cooperator will be ready to go to town during the coming year.

The big problem is the production and business end. Our profit and loss statement for May and June shows an increase in Net Worth of only $13.75.

And this is all the more unsatisfactory when we consider that we pay no rent, own no machinery, and pay no wages.

It is true that we have discounted 40% of our Accounts Receivable and that we may receive almost all of them. However those accounts are coming in slowly and we must not depend upon them.

Also I believe we are not justified in paying a commission of 25% on advertising. It is true that the Business Manager has made himself invaluable to us and there is no doubt that he earns more than he gets, but there are others on the staff just as invaluable who earn a small fraction of what the Business Manager gets. Also the ads that we get regularly and get paid for regularly we could get without paying such a commission, yet we pay the commission on those, while we wait months for any returns from the others.

Also I have come to the conclusion that we should not much longer depend upon volunteers for the production work on the paper. It is not only asking too much of the workers, considering the meager financial returns now being produced, but it also is too uncertain and takes too much of the Editorial staff's attention. For instance George Warner, whom I need badly on the copy desk, but who is also a typist, has had to spend much of his time typing, and I myself who am no typist have spent hours each week pecking in cut up ly strips. Probably we should come to consider the typists, stencil cutter, and mimeograph operators not as members of the cooperative but as employees of the cooperative to be paid definite sums.

But for the present I shall only recommend that although our Profit and Loss statement only shows a Profit of $13.75--which means that we only have $6.88 available for distribution according to our rules--still I suggest that we draw on our reserves for $25.00 to add to the $6.88 so that we will have $31.88 to distribute.

Perhaps this cannot be justified by strict accounting (although the fact that we are discounting 40% of our advertisement accounts outstanding should not be forgotten) but our workers must not be forgotten.

Let us distribute the $25.00 from the reserves this time, and see that the distribution of funds is more equitable hereafter. Last month alone we paid $43.71 in advertising commission to one person and yet we have only $31.88 to distribute among the rest of the workers. Until we can have a smooth running and fairly managed business organization we should not even consider a printed paper or even any paper.

One final word. The paper is in a much stronger position than is evident.

Soon the town will be completely filled up and all the stores will be running and we can have more advertising revenue from local stores.

We are adding new blood to our staff every week and if we take care to distribute responsibility and make this a true community undertaking instead of the work of a few, we should go far.

However all undertakings must have their self-sacrificing pioneers and we have chosen to play that role here.

We believe that the town paper can contribute an important bit to the town's welfare, and we have accepted the responsibility of seeing that it does so. I believe that we will never regret having done so and that the time will soon come when we will be mightily pleased with our handiwork.