[Bookstoprisoners] Update from Sandra

[Jay Schubert]

Sandra /All,

Suzanne & I will be out of town next Saturday but I'm totally open to moving
towards a non-letter writing process and think it's ok to not be soliciting
inmate art & poetry for the time being.

My thought on replying to inmates who wrote us from out of state is that we
should have a form that briefly explains our reason for only serving
Illinois inmates, but maybe we can consider including an unused postage
stamp in our response.  I would feel bad if the out of state people who
write us have to waste a stamp (which could cost as much as they earn in a
couple days) to find out we can't help them.

excellent job everyone!   You guys rock!

- Jay

On 7/23/06, Sandra Ahten <sandra.ahten at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Topic covered below:
>
> THANKS JAMIE!
> THANKS PAT!
> EFFICIENCY: LETTER WRITING, ZINE & OUT OF STATE REQUESTS
> SELLING ON AMAZON
> MEETINGS
>
>
> Things are looking really great in the BtP workroom. Jamie has found her
> niche culling the shelves. Wow! They are really organized. I was exclaiming
> over the relatively empty "business" section saying, "there's hardly
> anything there." She replied, "There was hardly anything there before, you
> just couldn't tell."  She was right.
>
> She had spent several weeks pulling for letters and sorting books and has
> a good feel for the requests...and now is putting that to work.
>
> We really appreciate her.
>
> THANKS PAT!
>
> Another person that has found her niche is Pat. Pat has one job with us --
> that is: taking the packages to the post office. What a load off my mind
> (and back) (and calendar) that I am not responsible for that any longer. Pat
> is ultra dependable. We put the ready-to-mail packages in the ante room.
> They disappear. Once a month Pat turns in her expenses for reimbursement.
> Magic.
>
> EFFICIENCY:
> LETTER WRITING, ZINE & OUT OF STATE REQUESTS
>
> Regarding letters: We have hundreds of letters waiting to be processed.
> And it looks a little overwhelming. But, in fact we are processing requests
> from June 12. We are only 5 weeks out. Not bad at all.
>
> In order to keep up with our flow. We have streamlined some processes and
> need to think about how we can best utilize all of our volunteer efforts.
>
> Some efficiency questions:
>
> We are no longer processing any out-of-state prisoner requests. There is a
> back up of letters. Do you think that we should have a pre-printed postcard
> to send to each out of state request that we get in? That would cost a
> little and take a little time to address...but it would be respectful. Or
> should we just continue to ignore them -- knowing that they will get the
> message if we don't respond?
>
> Zine:
> Do you think that we should encourage prisoners to send us their writing?
> Is the service we are able to provide to them through printing a small
> amount of their writing valuable enough to continue the effort? Does it give
> them false hopes about the possibility of publishing? I didn't include the
> call for writing in the latest version of the half sheet... but it could be
> put back in. We need to decide.
>
> Letter writing:
> Sending a personal letter with the outgoing orders has been fundamental
> part of what we do. Some folks find this very rewarding. Some find it
> daunting. Some would just rather not do it. On the downside -- it slows the
> processing of orders way down -- we could get more books in more hands if we
> didn't offer this service. There are specific pen pal prisoner services.
>
> It also muddies up the flow of processing orders when letters start
> arriving to a specific volunteer. Letter processors have to know if that
> volunteer is coming back and when. They have to make a decision to read a
> letter that may be personal, in order to determine that. We have to figure
> out what letters are addressed to a certain person -- just because the
> prisoner has that persons name... not because that person necessarily needs
> to be the one processing the next order.
>
> If we would decide to move away from personal letters...we could possibly
> have a check off form designed to go with our "half sheet" that provides a
> place to say if we were able to fill the requests, or if we added the "books
> not found" to our request list, or if he/she should ask again because we
> currently don't have it in but could get it later, or if we probably would
> never have the books requested (law books, etc).
>
> In the recent past we have addresses "letter writing" as an option -- but
> I think it is time we decide about parameters -- in order to know how to
> train new volunteers.
>
> Your opinion?
>
> SELLING ON AMAZON
>
> We are no longer operating the bookstore at all. Instead we are selling
> our better/ salable books that we feel would not be requested by a prisoner
> on Amazon. We have contracted with Deb Sanders to be our bookseller on a
> 50/50 arrangement. In the 3-4 weeks that we have been operating we have sold
> 108 books for a total gross revenue of $847. BtP will get 50% of that. We
> paying 10% of our net to the IMC.  Amazon reimburses for shipping.
>
> We have to ship the orders 2 times a week. (Monday and Thursday). Deb is
> doing it one of these times. We need a volunteer to do it the other day. Do
> you have one hour on Monday or Thursday on a regular basis, that you would
> be willing to commit? Even every other Monday or Thursday would be good. If
> so, please let me know.
>
> MEETINGS:
>
> I attended that steering committee of the IMC last Thursday. I'll send the
> minutes to that meeting to our list (when I get them typed up).
>
> When is our next BtP meeting? Could we have it next week? Please RSVP to
> me, if you could make it next Saturday at 2pm.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sandra
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> BooksToPrisoners mailing list
> BooksToPrisoners at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/bookstoprisoners
>
>
>


-- 
Jay
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/bookstoprisoners/attachments/20060723/6484195b/attachment.htm