David Bloomberg
As I mentioned last month, our regular (first Tuesday) meeting at the library for December was bumped, and I noted that we may have a lunch meeting instead. Since several members let me know that they thought this was a good idea, we are doing just that. The meeting will be Saturday, December 9, at 11 a.m., at Shakey's Pizza & Buffet (see back page). I encourage everybody who make it to come out, since we will be discussing not only the usual gamut of paranormal and fringe science topics, but also (and perhaps more importantly) REALL's plans for 1996 and beyond. Please come and give us your ideas and opinions!
In other, more general, news, I hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving. Even with the rest of the holidays coming up, we expect to get an issue of the newsletter to you by the end of December, since our first 1996 meeting will put us back on our regular schedule of the first Tuesday of the month -- Tuesday, Jan. 2, at 7 p.m. at the library. The topic has yet to be determined, so if you have an idea, please feel free to let us know (if, for some reason, you can't make it to the lunch meeting to share your ideas, please feel free to drop us a line or give us a call). We're currently working out plans with several speakers for upcoming months, including one who is coming all the way from Germany just to talk to us (ok, ok, he's not really coming just to talk to us, but he did go out of his way to let us know he'd be around and would be happy to give us some of his time). You'll hear more about these speakers as we finalize the dates and locations.
On a somewhat different topic, let me talk to you a little bit about the newsletter. You might have noticed that recently we've had a lot of articles written by yours truly. While I enjoy writing such articles, I've begun to fall behind. To be precise, I'm currently working on at least three full articles (remember that Greta Alexander article I mentioned a couple months ago?) plus smaller bits for inclusion in upcoming "REALLity Check" columns. I was recently able to convince one loyal member to write something about another topic I was otherwise going to have to tackle, and I'd like to see other members also get involved.
This past year has seen articles from several members who had not written any previously, and I'd like that trend to continue. If you are interested in a topic that relates to REALL, by all means please feel free to submit an article! If you don't know where to begin, contact me and I might be able to get you a starting point (heck, I might have something here that's been put on the back burner because I don't have the time and/or knowledge to write about it.) Articles can be anything from a book review of a recent skeptical (or not-so-skeptical) tome you've recently read (even if it's an older book, REALL members might not know about it) to a general article on any number of topics. Heck, even if it's nothing more than a letter to the editor, we enjoy hearing from our members!
/s/ David Bloomberg
