FRONT WORDS
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es, we’re for sale. Advertising in print and online, eblasts and posts have long been among our sales portfolio but now, sadly, Reunions magazine is for sale. We will entertain any offers to buy any of our assets. Those include the magazine you’re holding in your hands or reading online, our online assets on the web and Pinterest and also our rich and lengthy lists of qualified reunion planners. Contact editor@reunionsmag.com, 414-263-4567 or write Reunions magazine, PO Box 11727, Milwaukee WI 53211.
up and those who have come to depend on us might be wondering where to turn now. We will leave our web assets online as long as we can and continue to add to them for the time being. We will continue to send newsletters twice a month, so if you’ve not subscribed, sign up online now to receive reunion news regularly. People who know magazines, know publishing, have wondered at how long we’ve held on. But it’s not been without sacrifice, and now financial issues which we’ll have to face head on. We have run out of time, but more important, we’ve not only run out of money but we owe a lot that will keep what little income FOREVER 29 … there is in For almost 30 years, jeopardy for the Reunions magazine has months and been the love of my perhaps years to life. It started as a come. Then, kernel of an idea and sadly, like so grew and grew. many other These two pictures are taken almost 30 years apart. The black and white taken in spring Hundreds of issues, publications, 1990 includes two who are still here while the other three have all moved away …. far thousands of reunions away. The second is our current intrepid team (left to right) Karla Lavin, Edith Wagner, Sarah bankruptcy is a and an exciting Christiaansen, Roberta McLoud and Jennifer Rueth. 2019 Photo by Ashley Glad Michaels. consideration. nationwide audience. It Not, of course, the way we’d hoped to go out, but a was added to the web very early when none of us, or reality that’s been biting at our heals for the last you, could even fathom yet what lay ahead. Looking several years. The sadness is one of a close family back, our web presence was rudimentary at best but it slowly disintegrating, but not without little glimmers was anybody’s guess what that was all about. Some of hope though not for the product. said: whadda waste of time! We thought: get a handle For all these years, our employees have all become on this … what a great way to reach our readers! Our close friends. The younger ones were encouraged to web presence has migrated from oh-so-simple to now leave the nest as their skills grew and their creativity hundreds of pages about thousands of reunions flourished. We stay in touch and get together regularly, presented in categories of interest to reunion planners. which I hope will continue. Perhaps most unique, we Then we added a Pinterest page with dozens of are mostly neighbors so no one will be far away as we boards featuring more reunion-related categories and each pursue our next adventures on someone else’s pins (ideas) that has become a great driver of reunion nickel. While neighborly and good, good friends, we planners to our website and the magazine. have never become so close that we spend a lot of But, as with all magazines, it has become overtime together outside of work. We’ve welcomed births whelmingly expensive to print and mail, and so we (mostly grandchildren), marveled at growth, cheered must, like so many other publications, face our future. graduations and advancing careers, celebrated We have always enjoyed enthusiastic supporters/ weddings (no divorces), mourned deaths and been advertisers for our issues, as we have with this one. there for one another without injecting ourselves in Advertisers paid to reach reunion planners and that’s each other’s personal lives. Recently, someone asked what we deliver. And because we offer a readership of whether you have to be a neighbor to work here and reunion planners, we have essentially provided the after some thought I said, “I guess so!” magazine and web material free to planners. And now, So the fact that we became a recognized national loyal advertisers are still supporting us, while some publication might seem a bit of a mystery but it was are looking to new markets, as they looked to an idea that took root and spread and was welcomed reunions for almost 30 years. by reunion planners throughout the land. It’s that I can’t deny that this feels like a serious loss in the phenomenon that always caused curiosity and wonfamily. Everyone is sad and lamenting an end, but der, along with working with both supporter/advertisnot without thoughts of praise we’ve received over the ers and readers who never knew that we were not years and a sadness that new reunion planners coming 4 REUNIONS v reunionsmag.com
