Surratt Courier

[L Verge]

For those of you who are Surratt Society members, you may be wondering where the July issue of the Surratt Courier newsletter is. The past few months have turned into a war with technology at Surratt House. First, we had all the problems with our website -- which is barely holding its own at the moment (remember new name: http://www.surrattmuseum.org). Now the newsletter got delayed in the government office that prints them for us.

As you may or may not know, the USPS requires that we place two closure tabs on each newsletter. There is a machine that does that; but when the machine breaks down, they must be affixed by hand. We send out 1100 newsletters every month. That's 2200 tabs that have to be put on by hand by my staff and volunteers when el machino takes a siesta.

This time, we waited for the repairs to be made in order to save manpower. The 1100 Couriers left my office on Monday headed for the government mail room. However, it appears that only one person in the mail room knows how to do the paperwork required to mail 1100 via first-class mail -- that person decided to take two days off.

I have a guarantee that the Couriers would be in the local post office by 4 pm this afternoon. Hopefully you will find the "yellow pages" in your mail box within the next 2-5 days. The August newsletter will head to the printer on Friday. Let's see what can happen to that one!!!